What do you do if you're a dog photographer without an assistant? If you're shooting your own dogs, you settled for those moments when they're least likely to jump up and come sniff the lens. Sure, my guys can sit and stay, and Skittles can even sit up on her hind legs, but come on, how many times can you shoot that? Here's Journey sitting in the living room, and the kitchen, and the back yard, in the dog park and by the lake. And Skittles... .... ... well, you get the idea.
I saw Candy laying in the middle of my freshly vacuumed carpet (an almost daily activity - she sheds like crazy!) so I snuck over, grabbed my camera and 70-200 and started playing. At first I stayed on the couch so the dogs would ignore me. Leaning over the arm, I was able to get these:
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| (A butt shot? WHAT was I thinking?!) |
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| As long as he's focused on Candy I can catch some Z's! |
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Candy never seems to lay with her head toward me, so I got down on the ground and tried to get some interesting shots of her from a very low perspective. For most of these I set the camera on the ground and tilted the lens with my hand to frame them:
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| Am I dreaming, or is there a nut on the ground with a camera pointed at me? |
Candy has this inner lid that slides over her eyes when she sleeps. As I clicked away, she opened one eye partway, leaving the inner lid covering her eye. Almost a zombie look, huh?
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| OMG it's NOT a dream! Wow, he looks silly when he's down this low... |
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| All right, fine... But if you're gonna shoot, THIS is my best side. |
There's something interesting about Candy's eyes - the more relaxed and laid back she is, the more they seem to recede under her eyelids, and the more the lower ones droop. When she's actively engaged in something her eyes are larger and closer to the surface. I can't think of a better way to explain it than that. I think I need to try to do a series of photos on the many shapes of Candy's eyes...
For the techno-weenies, all shots were taken handheld at ISO 6400, between F/2.8-6.3 in ambient room light. No processing was done to address ISO noise, and only basic exposure/contrast tweaks in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Hope you enjoyed...
