Bonnie

Until we adopted Sadie in November of '03 I hadn't really looked closely at black greyhounds to notice how shiny their coats can be and just how striking they are in general. Sadie single-handedly completely changed my impression of them and made me appreciate this color -- and for that I'll always be grateful.

Bonnie was my first session on Saturday. She's young, mostly black with some "chrome" underneath. She's every bit the image of the elegance and dignity that is the Greyhound:

 

Wait...what?

Black greyhounds can be difficult to photograph, especially if you are in the habit of using fill flash outdoors. If you don't turn down the power on your flash, chances are you'll have a lot of hotspots appear on their coat. Most of the time I have my flash turned down to -0.3 or -0.7, although I've also started reducing its power even further to -1.0. (On the D300 I adjust the flash by pressing the button labeled with the "flash" icon, then rotate the front control wheel to the desired value.) Then I'll review the image and adjust accordingly, if needed. It's whatever looks good to you.

Greyhounds playing in the water can be -- how shall I say it? -- "manic". Spinning, scampering, leaping, running back-and-forth...I wonder what goes through their minds. It's wonderful to watch:

 

  

(I've digitally removed the leash in these pictures.)

And then they're done playing for the time being, they stand there and look quite collected:

 
 
 

And being sighthounds, they can certainly be nosy and curious:

 

Thank you, Sara, for letting me photograph Bonnie.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom; shutter-priority; matrix-metered; auto white balance; ISO 200; SB-800 used for fill in first and last picture only; shot in RAW.)