Irish, Maia, and Midori

Friday afternoon at GIG was warmer than I preferred. I don't particularly like photographing dogs with their tongues dangling and with them panting, trying to stay cool. Some Greyhounds are not overly fond of warm weather, so I try to find shade wherever possible for them as I photograph.

Irish, Maia, and Midori belong to a volunteer of the Greyhound adoption group that ran GIG this year. I thought it might be nice to have the hounds pose by one of the numerous rail fences that cover the Gettysburg field. I had a certain image in mind before I had them pose, but it required a different time of day.

Anyway, the volunteer's father offered to hold the leashes while I photographed. I particularly like how all three Greyhounds are "smiling" and have their ears at half-mast; Maia (in the middle) is starting to tongue-dangle but not enough to be distracting. I knelt down below their eye level and tried to keep Sickels Road off in camera right out of view. If I had to do this over I would've asked for the leashes to be down on the ground and then threaded through the fence.

When I returned home and started processing the photos in this session I was amused by Irish's (on the left) expression -- almost as if he saw something funny was going to happen to me. I hadn't noticed this at the time I took this picture. I like their relaxed faces and how they're all looking in my direction.

Tintype and wet-plate post-processing is kind of an interesting effect at the moment. I had one preset to mimic 19th century film processing, so I applied it to this picture since we were in a Civil War battlefield. I am pleased with how this turned out overall.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 10-24mm zoom lens and SB-400 flash; shutter-priority with shutter speed set to 1/250 second; aperture set to f/14 at ISO 200; -0.7 exposure compensation; center-weighted metered; shot in RAW, imported in Lightroom and DxO Film Pack 3.)