Photoshoot - Ann's Samoyeds

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.  In Caldwell Idaho this year, I shunned the mobs of shoppers, instead chose to sit out in the freezing (11 degrees F) cold with my best friend Helen (Canon EOS 7D - remember my camera has a name) two gorgeous Samoyeds and our friend Ann of Suntrip Samoyeds & 2 Border Collies.

The sun was just rising, which bathed the field in a beautiful golden hue - and lit up Gracie's eyes.

 

The wind blew slighly, ruffling her fur

Gracie & Pogo explored together.  Sniffing the air as it blew across the fields.

Gracie's 'sister' Pogo.   I loved the difference in the color of their eyes, and nose.  Pogo's nose is brown & her eyes photography much darker. 

Their color was striking against the browned grasses

I especially liked the grasses & how they brought an interesting texture to the shots. 

"Hi Pogo!  Yes, it is Camera Face making silly noises while she sits in the dirt freezing her arse off." 

A high shrill squeak gets their attention every time! 

"AHHHHHH Incoming!"

Pogo

Gracie

They didn't stray far from Ann

 Even though Ann has been sucked completely into the dark world of the border collie & was bringing home a puppy (Bea's littermate, Pearl)...they still adored her. 

They love their Mom, regardless of the border collie handicap. 

 Thank you, Ann for letting me photograph your incredible girls. 

Their love for you shown brightly in their eyes. 

Photoshoot - Poodles & Raw Diet

Meet Casper! 

And Bo

When this tiny little girl was adopted...her name was Rambo.  It suits her ....uhhhh NOT!  

She is a very loving, & sweet 16 y/o teacup poodle.  

She is a tiny little ball of love.  

Unfortunately Bo is blind. 

Her eyes have grown cloudy over the years, as you can see in this straight out of the camera (SOOC) shot (un-retouched / unprocessed) 

I wanted to give her 'mom' a glimpse of the younger Bo.  So I did some very simple edits (burning) and removed the cloudiness from her eyes.  It is amazing what you can do with a digital image & turn back time.  A few times as I used the 'burning' tool...and watched the grey fade away, her original eye color began to emerge. 

This is her companion Casper.  Casper is much younger than Bo.  

She was busy, busy, busy!  

And ohhhh so tiny! 

Casper's 'mom'  & the vet have been battling a severe skin condition in Casper.  They have tried switching foods, multiple times.  The vet prescribed creams, medications and insisted they feed her a 'science diet' specific for skin allergies.  

Whenever 'mom' would bring up the possibility of a food allergy...the vet said it was not possible,  since they were feeding her the special 'science diet' he prescribed.  The vet kept charging her money to treat the skin issues and at the same time charged her outrageous amounts of money for the special food. 

Below is another SOOC shot of Casper's red inflamed skin.  

Casper's skin is bright red under her short fur.  She has been miserable and her 'mom's heart has been breaking from worry.  

I was able to disguise most of that redness with some texture overlay's, tints and desaturating color. 

Before this photo shoot her mom had started doing research on her own and made a few discoveries about commercially prepared dog food.   She finally threw in the towel and switched both the girls to a completely raw diet two weeks ago.  She wanted total control over what Casper was eating.  

No preservatives, additives, grains...

When I talked to her Mom today...guess what?  

The rash is almost GONE!  

Her energy level has increased & the scratching has stopped!

It is going to be a bit of a challenge for her mom, since Casper is diabetic too.  But she is fully committed to the raw diet now, especially after the changes she has seen in only a couple of weeks.  

Hopefully this bright red, inflamed, painful, burning, weeping, scratchy rash is gone for good....

Instead she will look like this...without the editing.  

She is just toooooo damn cute for anything else.  

Cuteness Overdose - Zora

Zora was the focus of the photoshoot last Friday.  Monique had taken her to the NADAC Championships in Gillette, WY and came home ribbons and memories she wanted to commemorate in a photograph.

I was game!  I jumped at chance to photograph this adorable little ball of fur.

We set my living room up into a mock photo studio.  I used an ironing board to elevate the agility jump that Monique brought along.  Then put a small wooden box in front of it for Zora to perch on.  Draped it all with a large off-white flannel sheet.  For the back drop we hung another sheet on the wall behind - which we changed from green to blue once.

Then I started shooting.  And shooting...and shooting.  When you shoot something like this I know you need to use a aperture that will allow you to have a deeper depth of field, so I could get Zora and the ribbons in focus.  Sadly...I did not manage that as well as I hoped.

While this shot is cute, her ribbons are crisp, but Zora is not.  Part of that was caused by her 'quivering' and the fact I was shooting on such a low shutter speed, since the lighting was less than optimal.  Regardless I liked this shot. 

My lack of decent photography lighting really came into play.  I used lamps set up on both sides to light Zora the best I could from the bottom up.  The only light I had from the top came from my existing lighting in the house.  We had light from the north & west facing windows too.

I shot on manual, with my Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS and struggled with the proper exposure.  It was difficult to get the white of Zora's fur exposed correctly and still manage to capture the darks of her face.  I over exposed the fur a few times, and because I was shooting with such a low shutter speed Zora had to sit very still so I could get a decently focused shot.

I refused to use my flash, because of the way it was blowing out her fur & distorting the light in her eyes.   The blue sheet behind sucks the light out of the shot & was not as neutral as I was hoping it would be.   So I hid it with text!  Necessity is the mother of invention & pathetic attempts to distract from bad lighting & questionable white balance issues. 

 I double dog dare you not to smile when looking at this face. 

Then the fun began!  Forget posing in front of awards.  How about a quilt!

I had to break out my favorite lens, the nifty-fifty (canon 50mm) for some up close and personal shots of this little monkey.

This lens allows me to open up my aperture to as low as 1.8.  But that means your 'depth of field' is VERY narrow. As you can see in the photo below the bridge of her nose, between her eyes is in focus, but her eye ball peepers are slightly out of focus.  Not as crisp as I would like to see.  

I chose to shoot down on her...well, because she is so tiny and I loved the way the oriental carpet behind her just smoothed out into a gorgeous background.  Because I was shooting on such a low aperture 2.0 it allows for that gorgeous bokeh blur behind. 

The cuteness just caused my blood sugar to spike into dangerous levels.

Forget sugar in my coffee this morning, who needs it. 

Dear Lord in Heaven....diabetic coma is imminent.  It has been lovely knowing all of you...goodbye. 

 

Okay, back to reality.   Here is a good lesson in aperture and shutter speed. 

This was shot using aperture:  f/2.8, shutter 1/200, ISO 1000.  As you can see it is slightly under exposed.  But my camera's meter was telling me it was okay.  I didn't want to spend hours editing these shots, so I changed it a bit.

So I dropped it down to aperture f/2.0, shutter 1/125, ISO 1000.  Nothing else changed other than Zora's position ever so slightly.  Look at the difference. 

I love this lens.  Time to take my insulin. 

That said I need to find a decent lighting package to use for indoor shots and when I do finally set up a home studio.  Given my unemployed status it needs to not cost me a fortune.  I have NO idea what I need to buy first.  Should I get a flash set up - where the camera is attached to the lights and they flash together?  What is that called?  Do I even need it?  Any and all suggestions are welcome!  Please educate me - obviously I need it.  Thank you in advance!