Some of my favorite photos that I took during 2012

Ava near the Sunken Road in Fredericksburg:

Romeo the galgo in his backyard:

The head of a newly-retired greyhound is cradled by an adoption group volunteer:

Jesse the Chinese crested relaxes during a break from small-dog testing:

A newly-retired greyhound smiles for me:

A greyhounds runs at the Blur of Fur at Gettysburg:

Joey and Ruth at Dewey Beach:

Hailey:

Hoover and Jennifer at Marsh Creek, Gettysburg:

Elvis on his bed:

Amelia is taken for a morning stroll in her wagon at Dewey Beach:

I'm sure I'll think of some others. I'll put those in another post.

GreySave's Oktoberfest

The weekend after Dewey I went to GreySave's Oktoberfest, which was held at Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights. Fortunately the day was cool enough, and even if it had been hotter there were plenty of trees to sit under for shade. I passed out a lot of brochures advertising my photography, and had a pair of 12x18-inch metal prints to show people what cool things they are.

I decided that I'd use only my new D600, and partner it with my 50mm f/1.8 prime and the 70-200mm f/2.8 VR zoom lenses. Mostly I took head shots. Here are some samples:

The 70-200mm VR zoom (I have the first version) is a wonderful lens to use, although you do have to get used to carrying it. Until I tasted the FX Kool-Aid I have not been able to use it as much as I would have like. Now, however, there's not much of an excuse to not use it.

Towards the end I met up with Camille and her Josie Bean and Bertie. It was nice to see them again; some of the pictures I took of Josie turned out better than the ones I took during their session at the Race to the Park event last spring:

Here's a cropped photo of Bertie that I took:

Overall I was very pleased with how I was able to handle the D600 despite my lack of familiarity with it. I will say that I miss having dedicated switches to control metering and focusing modes on the D300 (on the D600 you have to look at either the top panel or look in the viewfinder). But these are not major quibbles -- I'll get used to not having them.

No puppy. Boo.

The number of dogs that were retiring from both Tucson and Caliente tracks have been declining recently. So a dog haul from Abilene, KS was put together so that Fastfriends Greyhound Adoption, GreySave, Operation Greyhound, Greyhound Adoption Center, and Homeward Hounds would get some retirees. Word filtered in that there was an injured four-month-old greyhound puppy that would be included, and that Fastfriends would get it. Who wouldn't want to meet a landshark?

But while we waited at Fastfriends for the van to arrive with the group's hounds from the hauler (who was running late), word came that there was no puppy aboard. In fact, the "puppy" was more like a year old, and that its injury had almost completely healed. Even so, it was decided to leave the puppy out of this haul because it was deemed risky to have a smaller hound mixed in a number of adults. No sense in taking the chance of the youngster getting re-injured.

But still...it was a disappointment. Nevertheless, when the nine hounds arrived Joyce and a number of volunteers were ready to help out.

Joyce took it upon herself to trim the nails of one greyhound:

I noticed she was sitting in a pool of light but if I didn't use fill flash here the shadows would be too dark. On the other hand, I didn't want the flash to be too obvious. So I dialed in -0.7 flash compensation to lower the flash's power.

In the following picture I had set the flash setting to slow sync. This was because I wanted to properly expose everything. The only problem was I had to use a slow shutter speed to do this. I waited until the hound was still before pressing the shutter button. This was taken at 1/30 second:

This is about as slow a shutter speed as I'm comfortable with using a non-VR lens.

I guess sub-consciously I've been interested in getting pictures of hounds and the hands of those helping them. Here are a few:

This was a great-looking group of hounds. Maybe a puppy will come in a future haul. One can hope.

Bertie and Josie Bean

This is Bertie, processed using the Lightroom Faded Foto preset:

She's a goofball off-camera, but so well-behaved while I was working with her.

Josie Bean is Bertie's close companion.

She's showing her rooing abilities -- she's good at it.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/320 second and 1/200 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; shade white balance; shot in RAW.)

Keiki and Marley

What kind of photo can you get in 10 minutes?

You can get this:

...which makes for a great stink-eye picture, but was not what I was asked to get.

Or, you can get this:

Wow...they sort of arranged themselves with their faces about equidistant from me, and I had a split-second to get it, or the moment would be lost. As it so happened, this was the very last frame I took.

I hope to get more time with them in the future and really do a better job for the two of them.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8, and the 70-200mm VR zoom lens and the SB-800 flash; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/5.6; camera chose shutter speed of 1/320 second (top, at ISO 800)  and 1/125 second (bottom, at ISO 400); center-weighted metered; exposure compensation set to -0.7; auto white balance; shot in RAW.)

Hailey

At the GreySave picnic that I had posted some photos about earlier, I had a session to do with Hailey (aka "Bubba"). What a great girl she is. She was so easy to work with. Hilary (her owner), Hailey, and I walked a little ways away from the vendor area and stood under the numerous shade trees in the park. I had only 30 minutes or so to get something decent.

I  liked her appearance here:

...and particularly liked how she looked here:

But sometimes I can't leave well-enough alone, so in Lightroom I made a virtual copy of the original picture's virtual copy and added a faded photo preset:

I think I like how this came out better.

She has the biggest "heart" marking ever:

At the very end of the session she decided she wanted to go rolling in the grass and leaves on the ground. She enjoyed herself so much that she lost her head:

I had fun with her, and I hope to book a longer session with her soon.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; shutter speed varied from 1/400 second to 1/1600 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; -0.7 exposure compensation; auto white balance; shot in RAW.)

JJ at the park

At the GreySave picnic I was asked to photograph JJ, a blue brindle boy who had his right rear leg amputated a couple of months ago. His owners, who take in special-needs greyhounds, regularly post Facebook updates on him. Reading through his travails have been inspiring to those who know him. So at the very end of the picnic, I asked his owner if I could quickly take a few photos.

He walked out of the ex-pen and stood still as I photographed. I particularly liked how this one came out (I digitally removed his leash):

One of his owners stood behind my right shoulder and called out to him while the other owner held up his leash. When I got home I added a little more black to the picture.

I hope JJ is around a long, long while.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/640 second at ISO 400; -0.7 exposure compensation; SB-800 flash set to -1.0 flash compensation; auto white balance; center-weighted metered; normal JPG.)

Pictures from GreySave's Race to the Park picnic

For the first time ever I went to GreySave's Race to the Park picnic. I know a few GreySave volunteers because they have help run the silent auction in past years at the Solvang Greyhound Fest.

The park was at a different location than what they had used in the past. Many years ago it was privately-owned property, but now it belongs to the city of La Crescenta. It has many trees, and lots of grassy areas. I had a few sessions to do, and in between the sessions I wandered around the many greyhound-filled x-pens that were set up under the shade trees.

Here are some pictures I took during the picnic:

Everyone enjoyed spending time with their hounds, whether that involved walking in their little parade around the park, or taking a nap in the afternoon.

I tried to stay within the shade to photograph, as has been my habit of late. Center-weighted metering was used a lot here to help bring out the eyes, and I mostly used my heavy 70-200mm VR zoom for these shots.