I take my dogs on a walk nearly every weekday morning. We walk as fast as my legs will take me, and the round trip is about a mile and a half. It's pretty much our go-to exercise — for the dogs as much as for myself.

I used to take my point-and-shoot camera with me each time, but ever since getting my DSLR, I've avoided taking it. The camera is fairly large and bulky, and even though it takes awesome photos and I love, love, love the camera (a Canon EOS Rebel T3i), it just seemed a hassle to wear it on my morning walks. Especially because I try to race-walk the majority of the way, and the idea of a camera bopping along on my chest from beginning to end of the walk didn't appeal to me.

This past week, though, I decided to try bringing it anyway. I keep seeing cool things on my walks, and I kick myself every time for not having my camera on me. I do carry my iPhone, but it just wasn't doing the job the way I wanted when I'd photograph this or that along the route.

Turned out that managing to keep two dogs in line while juggling my phone, my pepper spray (to avoid this happening again) and now my bigger, better camera is, yes, a bit of a hassle. But once I figured out to situate my camera along my side rather than hanging in front (to avoid it bopping on my chest), it really wasn't that big of a deal.

What was a big deal? The photos I managed to get, photos such as these:

deer grazing