Jill Greenberg part 4: A Puddy Love Story

Thought I'd show my latest attempt with a twist: a love story we're all familiar with...


A girl awaits her tardy mate
He promised he'd be home 2 hours ago! Working late my furry butt!!

 When he finally shows his excuse just blows!
Sorry Sweetie, boss's staff ran over and traffic was murder!

His breath doth stink - he's finished methinks
I knew it - Pupperoni breath! You've been to Pooters!!!

He tries to amend but she just won't bend
Don't  EVEN think about it - talk to the paw pal!

His constant advances gives him advantage...
mmmmm.... that does feel good.....

Dedication wins reciprocation!
 Oh Sweetie, you know I can't stay mad at you!

Their burning amore naturally leads to more...
Hey, um.... just changed the blankets in our kennel... you wanna.... ....

 My sincere dedication mandate some discretion
(hey, what do you think I'd do here, sound effects?!  SHAME!!!!)

Lights back on, all anger is gone!
 Ok, I forgive you, but you're still such a DAWG!!!

 Yeah, I know - wachagonna do?!

What's for dinner?!  (sigh)

Hope you enjoy....

Sketching: portrait of a kitty

David duChemin is a photographer that I've quickly come to admire and draw inspiration from. I have 2 of his books, "Within the Frame" and "VisionMongers", and I just ordered a third, "Vision and Voice". I also just attended his 3 day workshop that covered some of the topics in these books and more.

During his workshop he introduced the concept of sketch photos: images that aren't yet complete. Every photographer has gotten home, uploaded images from our camera and discovered that the shot we thought we bagged is not quite there yet. Something distracting in the background we didn't notice, framing just slightly off, maybe something's missing that would complete the story we're trying to tell.

These images then are the sketches. By studying them we can make decisions on how to improve on them. Maybe change our angle of view to eliminate a line cutting through a subjects head. Perhaps shooting with a longer or shorter focal length to change the background enough to eliminate a distraction or include more of the environment.

Sketch images, then, are like a novelist's first, second, third draft...

Here's some sketches I recently shot of a kitten at the Denkai Animal Sanctuary:







And yes, there are things I see that could be improved... However - how am I doing so far?!

Hope you enjoy

It's a gray area....

One thing that's frustrating for a photographer who's passion is animals is shyness. And I speak mostly of Journey. Ok, Skittles is kinda shy too, but not as bad. Then again, Clyde is too so.... .... (sigh)

I typically try to keep a camera at hand no matter where I go, cause if I see my Puddies doing something interesting and get up to grab a camera, they stop. But shortly after I started keeping a camera at hand they started noticing when I pointed it at them. In the beginning, they'd come over to have a sniff. NOW they just stop and walk away.

Mainly Journey.... .... (sigh)

I just finished a 3 day live-feed workshop over the internet. Yesterday during lunch break, I decided to take my chances. I grabbed my camera, lay down in the corner and commenced giggling from the endless kissing from Skittles and Journey cause they immediately came over to visit. Clyde did too, but he wanted to play.

And that was my hook: he enticed Journey to play with him. Was it perfect? No - seems they wanted to jump and bump and play right on top of me. But hey - they were playing!

Skittles stayed with me, lubricating my neck and face so I could stay fluid and follow the action. With her slobbery help I finally caught the more playful side of Journey. I've been waiting for this for a long time!

All shots were made with available light and no modifiers. I did have to crank up my ISO a bit and shoot a slower shutter speed than I wanted, but I just timed my shots to catch them at the peak of their action. Been practicing that, and yesterday I did pretty good!

This first shot is in 2 parts. The first is the original. That blurred thing on the right is Skittle's leg. I'm trying to decide if it helps explain the story I'm trying to tell - Journey watching her, hoping she'll come over and play:

It's a bit distracting, but does add context. What do you think? Here's the cropped version.

Check out his eyes in both images. In the first, it seems like he's looking up at the owner of that leg. In this cropped version, it seems more like he's looking at us. Journey's eye's don't track each other always: I think the term is cock-eyed. However, it's subtle and you don't notice it often. I do see it here however: Skittles' leg helps draw my attention to his right eye first, and that one is looking at her.

So it seems that the cropped version tells a different story. Here he's inviting us to come play. That's cause the first thing my eye is drawn to is his left eye, clearly aimed straight out at us.

By the way, this is the class I just took - having a vision for my photography, and telling a story with each image I create.


There is a contemplative side of Journey. Or rather, a lot of his postures could encourage a primate to decide he's contemplative (sorry Patricia). I love this shot for it's story - the idea that he's laying there contemplating his surroundings, or maybe a playmate just out of view, or maybe he's just hoping I'll drop a bit of that muffin I'm eating (or would be eating if I wasn't playing with my camera!).



Clyde got tired of being ignored and decided to plant himself right smack in front of me. This is a lucky shot, cause he kept scooting in so close my lens couldn't get him in focus. Nudge him back, back up against the wall real quick and snap before he can decide to crowd back in. Rinse, repeat.

In one of my old computer programming language books, if you look in the index for the word recursive, it says "see recursive". An infinite loop in programming parlance. that's what shooting Clyde feels like - a never-ending loop of placing him then rushing to reset myself, quickly frame and focus and shoot before we start ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!


Hope you enjoy....

Jill Greenberg, part 3

So, ring flash in hand I gritted my teeth and waded in for another shot at dialing in Jill Greenberg's lighting look.

Without going into a ton of details let me just say "We ain't dere yet!". But I believe we are getting closer. My versions are deeper, richer in color, darker in general and perhaps more contrasty than her work. In essence, it feels heavy when I look at my images as opposed to hers.

Hers are lighter, more whimsical in her overall look. The only whimsy I'm getting is the expressions I manage to capture. And this time I got some great ones!  While trying to dial in my lighting I'm also dialing in my technique for getting interest and animation from my dogs. Funny voices, squeaky sounds (no, I will not record my sessions!) even a stuffed toy balanced on top of my head. Whatever it takes, yes?!

Anyway, here's a few of my favorites, sans any comments (I hope):

First up, Clyde!


Geez, keeping my quips to myself is harder than I thought!


In the above shots, the background was right up against the posing table. In this next series, I pushed it back and added a gridded light down low and shooting up onto the dark gray paper...

He-he-he... LUNCH! (slurp!)

Ok, ok, couldn't leave that last one alone!


I got a lot of shots of Skittles flicking her tongue, licking her nose, etc. The trick? I smeared vegetable oil on her nose, or in the case of the last image, on the stuffed toy. Sneaky, I know but hey, it gave her a "wet nose" shine, got her animated and resulted in some cool shots!


Hope you enjoy...

It's my first time

Playing with a ring flash...

In my attempts to recreate the lighting effects that Jill Greenberg achieves I finally caved and bought an Alien Bees ring flash (ABR).

Did a quick test with Tammie, and my gridded Creative Light 3' Octabox. Very interesting results, but I'm not yet sure I'm using the ABR right.

First, how about a shot where it's the only light source? I can't think of a better subject than Clyde. I've been trying to catch him in his favorite sleeping position. As usual he woke up as I got close, but I think the ABR might have intimated him, cause he stayed in place for a change.


Get in close with my 24-70, and light falloff looks pretty good here. On-axis lighting works pretty good on hairy subjects, huh?! I also like how the unique shadow created by a ring flash helps him pop nicely.


But I said Tammie, yes? I put her close to the wall, and positioned the octabox to feather across her face and dialed in my light:

Next, add in some fill with the ring flash:

Not bad, huh? The octabox is killing the ring shadow on her right, but you can see it behind her left shoulder.


I pulled Tammie away from the wall, repositioned the octabox, then moved my shooting position to pick up more of the gradient caused by the octabox's grid. I like that part, but notice that the ring flash shadow is larger and all around her. The falloff from the octabox makes sense, moving it away causes the wall to go darker, but I expected the same from the ring flash since I had to back up my shooting position as well.

Then again, the octabox is a diffused light source, even though it's gridded. The ring flash is a hard, undifussed light source and as such it doesn't fall off as fast.

Nonetheless I was caught off guard by how big the shadow was. Based on images I've seen in magazines and photography articles that discuss the use of ring flashed, I expected it to be barely visible. This seems much larger than it should be. Then again, the ABR is a rather compact unit, smaller than most higher end units. Perhaps that's the difference?


Gonna have to play more and see what I can do. However, I'm really psyched about taking a model outside with the octabox, ring flash and my Vagabond portable battery and do some location work!

It's all about distance

I'm working a couple projects that will be greatly helped if I can get in tight on faces. Not human faces, animals - horse, dogs, cats, etc. Immediate thought is to use a macro lens, but that means getting up close and VERY personal, which makes most animals VERY nervous. So I have to find another solution if there is one.

Cropping is not desirable because of all the resolution I throw away when I do that. I considered dedicated macro prime lenses, but they are rather costly and if I read the specs correctly, still puts me too close to the animal.

Decided to try a less expensive option and bought an extension tube. The Canon EF25 II to be exact. If it doesn't work out, it's still a good buy as it has uses in several other areas that will benefit from close-ups.

So, I set up a little test where I shot a small subject with a few lenses, then shot it again with the extension tube installed. I also measured the distance from the end of the lens to the subject when I shot the lenses without the tube. Results with the tube were so interesting, I totally spaced out on measuring. Not that it mattered in one case...

I set the camera up on a tripod, set the focus to full closeup, then moved the subject in and out till it was in focus and measured the distance.

The setup:
Mount a Super Clamp on the tripod's ballhead, and my monopod becomes an extension arm for the camera. Yes that's a travel iron being used as a counterweight!

A simple light and reflector setup, this is more about subject distance than light quality stuff.

And here's the results: 

16-35 at 35mm:
Little Bear is only 4" away from the end of the lens.


Add the extension tube you get the above, but LB had to be this close:


16-35 at 16mm:

At 16mm, closest I could get was ~4.5". Interesting, huh? I had to back it up to get it back in focus. But here's the rub: add the extension tube and there's no minimum subject distance. Or, rather, I can't get there, the lens gets in the way. No matter where I put LB or how I cranked the focus ring, no joy, it won't focus at 16mm with the tube. Doesn't matter, wouldn't do close-ups at 16mm anyway - kinda counter productive, don't you think?

135mm F/2 prime:
Without the tube, we go from 4" to 28". That's as close as I could get...

With the tube, and I can pull it in about half that distance, but the magnification impact isn't as big as it is at 35mm.

Decided to try my 24-70 with the tube just to see how it's close-up capability is impacted No joy at 24mm, but I got this at 70mm:


Also, to put this into perspective, Little Bear stands just 5.5" tall...

So, qualitative results imply that the change in magnification is greater as focal length drops into the wide-angle category, but you have to be right up against your subject.

Next test is to actually shoot some dogs and horses. From this initial test, I'll hang out about 35mm. I'm curious to see how my 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.2 and 70-200 f/2.8 does on the extension tube.

And on a side note, image quality does not seem to be impacted by the extension tube... ... 

YAY!!!!!


Take 2: Finding Miss Greenberg...

Still studying, tweaking and refining my lighting as I study Jill Greenberg's awesome work.I'm not quite there yet, but getting closer!


This is a rough sketch of the layout I used. Pardon the primate standing in for the canine, the application didn't have any puddy models. The background was dark gray paper.

The 2 gridded back lights provide a rim, highlighting the sides and giving depth, interest and separation from the background. OH, since I couldn't expect a Puddy to sit still while I dialed things in, I grabbed a substitute that would...


The 2 umbrellas provide a fill to lift the shadows. They're positioned so the fill is even across the width of the table, so puddies can move, as they're apt to do, and still have good light on them.


Finally, a 3rd light targets the model directly, creating interesting specular light on their face and lifting it even brighter into a key light status. Jill seems to typically use a ring flash which, when integrated with the camera, allows her to target the light directly on the model no matter where they go. I don't have a ring flash, so I tried using an 11" reflector on one of my strobes. Downside is different light quality, and since I'm working alone, the inability to track my Puddies when they move.



Once I had everything dialed in, I pressed my favorite Puddy Skittles into posing yet again. As you can see, she was really thrilled to help out!

So, what am I thinking John?!

(Hey, at least her ears are up this time!)

You SURE you want to point that at me?

(I just love her eyes!!!)

I had such good luck with Skittles, thought I'd push the limit and put Clyde up on the table. Lesson: When working with a Tripawd (3 legged dog) make sure the surface isn't slick. They can't hold a sitting position. I no sooner placed Clyde where I wanted then his front legs just slid out and he ended up laying down. I figured "what the heck" and tried a shot to see how versatile my lighting was...


Not bad! The 11" reflector isn't hitting his face, but is highlighting the top of his head. However, now he's close enough to the fill umbrellas to get good lighting on his face. 


Not too shabby!!