A Bean and Billy Bob group picture

I usually have a problem trying to photograph Billy Bob when I kneel down to his eye level. That's because when I do that, he starts walking towards me. So without Gayle's help this picture wouldn't have been possible. She worked to get their attention and also keep them on one spot while I shot a few frames.

I used my 70-200mm VR zoom to put some distance between the dogs and me. I also used my SB-800 flash to fill in some shadows. It might be worth getting this printed because -- believe it or not -- I have no prints of my pictures hanging on our walls.

(Shot with the Nikon D600, 70-200mm VR zoom, and SB-800 flash; shutter-priority mode, shutter speed 1/320 second at f/3.2; flash-compensation -0.7; ISO 1000; auto white balance; matrix-metered; shot in RAW and processed in Lightroom.)

Billy Bob does not tip over

February 23rd is Billy's birthday and I wanted to take some birthday photos of him. So I led Bean and him out to our backyard and tried my luck. To get his attention I have a video of barking and rooing greyhounds during a turn-out at a racing kennel, a greyhound roo-fest inside a friend's home, and a morning practice with a squeaking artificial lure at a racetrack. No doubt he wondered what I was doing as I walking back-and-forth on the patio while getting ready to play back the video, so he followed me. Hoping he would keep a bit of distance from since I was using my 70-200mm zoom (which has a 5ft/1.5m minimum focusing distance) I braced myself against a vine-covered wall and played the video a few times. I used my SB-800 flash to provide a bit of fill.

This was his reaction upon hearing the rooing greyhounds.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 with the 70-200mm VR and SB-800; shutter-priority with a shutter speed of 1/320 sec at f/3.2; ISO 400; matrix-metered; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Sadie and Katie snuggle

Sadie is a snuggler; Katie is not. Sadie is needy and likes reassurance; Katie, not so much. Katie is not particularly fond of anyone lying very close to her. She will not bite if it happens, but she will usually get up and leave to go lie down somewhere else.

So to find Katie sleeping in a dog bed with Sadie's face so close to hers last week as Katie continued to recover from her surgery...well, we had to get a few pictures.

They slept together like this for awhile. It was comforting to see them like this.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 18-35mm zoom at 35mm; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/4.5; shutter speed of 1/15 second at ISO 6400; auto white balance; imported and converted to black-and-white using Lightroom; normal JPG.)

Katie -- one week post-amp

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 18-35mm zoom lens at 35mm; aperture-priority with aperture set at f/4.5; shutter speed 1/40 second at ISO 4000; +0.7 exposure compensation; center-weighted metered; normal JPG; imported into Lightroom and processed using the blue filter preset.)

Miami

Another shot taken in a grass field north of the infamous peach orchard in Gettysburg, PA. during GIG 2013. I was attracted to how the setting sun acted as a rim light on his legs, brisket, and ears. I couldn't use fill flash here to lighten his body because the grass he's standing in would be illuminated in a pool of light from the flash. I elected to add some fill in post-processing, and used a graduated filter to the sky to bring out some of the clouds. His leash was digitally removed, too, so just know that he wasn't off-lead here.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 and 10-24mm zoom; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/5.6; camera set shutter speed of 1/200 second at ISO 200; center-weighted; +1 exposure compensation; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Minty (2003? - 2013) and Hoover (2006? - 2013)

Both taken before their time from smoke inhalation from an overnight fire at home last week.

Minty at Dewey Beach last year:

Hoover at Gettysburg last year:

(Minty: Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 18-35mm zoom at 18mm; aperture-priority with aperture set at f/4; camera set shutter speed to 1/1250 second; matrix-metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.

Hoover: Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom at 70mm; program mode; shutter speed 1/250 second at f/8; -0.3 exposure compensation; auto white balance; shot in RAW and converted in Lightroom.)

It's been two months...

...since I last photographed Sadie.

 

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/4; camera chose 1/50 second at ISO 320; auto white balance; center-weighted metered; converted to black-and-white using Lightroom; normal JPG.) 

Before and After #2: Ava

I haven't done this in several months, but I thought I'd share another before-and-after shot. This picture of Ava shows her standing on the driveway that leads up to the Richardson house atop Marye's Heights in Fredericksburg, VA.

It's overexposed to a great degree, so I backed off the exposure overall by about a half stop. The sunlit side on the right side of her neck and chest were overexposed as well, so I used an adjustment brush to burn in those areas, but not too much. Adding a vignette darkened her ears too much, so I dodged her ears with another adjustment brush (it's hard to make out since it's such a small area in the picture). Last of all, I cloned out her red leash and its shadow, which wasn't hard to do but it was time-consuming.

And I encountered the memory problem that other Lightroom users have run into when placing more than 10 cloned spots on one picture:. I had to exit out of Lightroom to free up memory. It's somewhat annoying, and I've read it hasn't been fixed in Lightroom 4 yet, either.

Note also that I'm working with an Adobe DNG file: I had to convert it from a Nikon NEF raw file to Adobe DNG because Lightroom 3.6 (the version I use) doesn't support D600 RAW files and never will. (I also didn't want to install Nikon's own software because that would add another step in my workflow.)  Adobe stopped supporting my version months ago, so I have no choice but to upgrade to LR 4 (and Windows 7). Which brings up the problem of software companies always playing catch-up when new cameras are introduced with their particular RAW files if that's what you like to shoot. If I had shot JPEG, no problem.

Our cat trap is working

Actually, this is what happens when basement cat meets a small-dog carrier.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/8 second at ISO 800; auto white balance; matrix-metered with +0.7 exposure compensation; converted to black-and-white using Lightroom; normal JPG.)

Sadie and Tooey

One of the cats, Tooey, often sleeps with Sadie and Katie on our bed. Usually each animal keeps a certain distance from the others so that everyone is on our bed, everyone is far enough apart, everyone gets to sleep, and thus everyone is happy.

Yesterday, it was Tooey and Sadie who slept very close to each other. I suspect that, in typical Sadie (and typical greyhound) fashion, she stretched herself out be as comfortable as possible at some point during the nap. Despite that, Tooey held his ground. At one point Tooey sat up and looked out our bedroom window while Sadie continued to nap.

I won't go so far as to suggest that Tooey was keeping watch while Sadie slept, but I could understand how one might interpret this image that way.

(Shot with Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom lens set at 105mm; aperture-priority; aperture set to f/5.3, camera chose 1/60 second at ISO 800; auto white balance; matrix-metered; rendered in b&w using Lightroom; normal JPG.)

Sadie, Katie, and their new friend at Point Vicente

Last week, my friend and her husband from Minnesota spent a week vacationing in southern California. When she sent me a message a few months ago to say that she'd be in town, one thing that she wanted to do was make sure she got to meet Sadie and Katie. Of course, there was no way that she wasn't going to meet them.

After going on a three-hour late morning whalewatch cruise out of Redondo Beach (where we spotted six fin and two gray whales, and a few common dolphin), we drove to Point Vicente to walk along the Palos Verdes loop trail. Starting from the Interpretive Center, we walked north on the trail, pausing several times to look out at the ocean that was just on the other side of the metal railing that skirted the edge of the cliffs. We spent a lot of the time chatting.

After awhile Aimee and I decided to turn around and walk back to the Center, and again we paused a few times along the way to look at the ocean. By this time I decided I had better try my luck and get a few shots of Aimee with Sadie and Katie. Although we stopped once to take a few photos as she knelt behind them -- Sadie rested her head on Katie's back as she often does -- I wanted to get a few shots of them walking together. This might be the best of those:

I used my little SB-400 flash for fill even though it was mid-afternoon, and the sun was falling behind high cirrus clouds that were approaching from the west. I imported this picture into Lightroom, and played around with a few different presets before I settled on this one, which is contrasty and made for a dramatic sky. Aimee's face was too underexposed so I used an adjustment brush to lighten it with the Exposure setting.

Katie surprised me during the walk in that she was not nervous, and didn't get anxious when strange dogs passed nearby a few times going in the opposite direction on the trail. I was quite pleased at how well both girls, especially Katie, handled being walked at the point. But then, I needn't have worried because Aimee handles Greyhounds well, has three Greyhounds of her own, and assisted me at the last few Greyhound gatherings that we've both attended.

Ever since Aimee and I met on a Greyhound forum a few years back I'd been hoping she'd get the opportunity to meet our girls. I was never entirely sure that she'd ever get the chance. I'm so glad that it came true last week.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom set at 18mm and the SB-400 flash; program mode; camera used 1/250 second at f/20 at ISO 400; slow-sync; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Sadie #43

I made a more concerted attempt to get a picture of Sadie today. When she followed me into our bedroom and waited for me to do something with her, I had the camera ready. The light bouncing off our wood floor and coming through our windows had a nice effect on her. But she still didn't look quite right. Then, a car outside revved its engine a few times, which caught Sadie's attention.

 

When I imported the picture into Lightroom I was perfectly willing to leave it in color. But the wood floor reflected an orange cast on the underside of Sadie's face. So I thought I'd see what I'd get if I converted the image to black-and-white. I made a few exposure adjustments, added some sharpness to her face, and used the Iris Enhance adjustment preset to her eyes.

This is the 43rd picture I've taken of Sadie this year.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2; camera chose shutter of 1/640 second at ISO 400; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Katie #48

When I went out in our backyard a couple of days ago with Sadie and Katie I was hoping to get a decent picture of either of them. I tried to concentrate on Sadie since I had not taken anything that I liked lately, but again it did not work out. So I started trying to get Katie's attention but she would not look at me in a way that I liked. But Gayle, who was inside and noticed what I was attempting to do, started tapping on the big sliding glass window that Katie and I were standing next to. Katie turned to look at Gayle, so I took a few shots.

Yes, it's preferable to be at eye-level with your dog when you take its picture, but I thought if I did that on this occasion the resulting background would have been too distracting. Instead, I aimed down towards Katie, using a somewhat large aperture (f/2.8) to blur the stones behind her. After I imported it into Lightroom, I adjusted the color temperature up to get rid of the bluish cast you get in open shade, and used the Iris Enhance adjustment brush preset to lighten up Katie's eyes.

By the way, this is the 48th picture I've taken of Katie this year.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/2.8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/200 at ISO 400; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Sadie asleep on a late fall afternoon

Lately I have not been having much success in photographing Sadie and getting anything I liked. This afternoon however, as I walked into our bedroom to fold some laundry, she, Katie, and Tooey were asleep on our bed. It's not unusual for dog and cat to share like this. With sunlight spilling in through our wood shutters I noticed how it backlit Sadie's ear, and I liked the effect. So I left the room to get my camera and hoped that I would not get Sadie's attention. When I returned I took a few snaps.

I liked this one the best -- it happens to be the first frame I shot:

 

I was hoping I wouldn't overexpose too much the fur in front of her ear. I played around with different color and black-and-white presets in Lightroom just to see what I'd get, but I ultimately left it in color and just added a bit of fill to bring out the shadow details. A vignette was also added to make you look at her.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm lens; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/4; camera chose shutter speed of 1/160 second; auto white balance; ISO 200; normal JPG.)

Bella (1993 - 2011)

I got a last-minute request for a session on Friday afternoon during Dewey. It turned out my subjects were three Italian greyhounds: Bella, Marco, and Milo. Bella's owners wanted to get some pictures of her at the beach because they took her there often. They'd adopted her when she was thirteen. But now at eighteen years of age she had long been blind and had other maladies. She is not well and we're not sure she'll be around to return to Dewey next year, I was told.

So I spent the majority of the next hour photographing her for as much as she would tolerate. The rest of the time I photographed her companions Marco and Milo. And while I did that for a few minutes, Bella came up to me and started barking. Not with any malicious intent, you understand, but I think she was doing this just to let me know who was in charge. So I stopped, turned, petted and scratched her for a few moments, then returned to photograph Marco and Milo. As I resumed shooting, she resumed barking.

She must've been one protective broodie in her younger days. I could imagine her saying, "So I'm old, missing teeth, can't see a thing, and a bit wobbly, but I can still smell and hear where you are and I can put you down on the ground."

I couldn't help myself but smile at that thought of her.

Bella suddenly fell ill and passed last weekend. Rest well, Bella -- I'm glad I met you. And, yes, I know who's in charge.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom at 200mm; program mode; camera chose 1/320 second and f/11 at ISO 200; slow-sync; SB-800 used for fill; auto white balance; post-processed in Lightroom; shot in RAW.)

Abbey

A tip often cited by pro pet photographers to get interesting pictures of dogs is to get down to the dog's eye level. I agree. This is because most pet photos are taken looking down at the pet. And you'd like to take a picture with the idea of "this is what I see", and not take a picture that looks like everyone else's.

If you go to greyhound events like the Solvang Greyhound Gathering, Greyhounds In Gettysburg, and Greyhounds Reach the Beach at Dewey Beach, you might see some dude occasionally photographing greyhounds by walking in front of the dog, keeping pace with it, and hunched over while holding a camera down at arm's-length, pointing it at the dog, and snapping pictures. Ummm...that would probably be me.

I would not be surprised if I amuse more people in this manner. I'm sure one of my friends has a picture or two of me doing this. But I like the different perspective from shooting this way. For example, this is Abbey, one of the greyhounds I took pictures of at Dewey:

I used a wide-angle lens to make sure the dog is in the field of view since I can't look through the viewfinder to see the dog (in this case, I'm using the 18-200mm zoom set at 18mm). I aimed the camera in the general direction of the greyhound, set the autofocus mode to "Auto Area AF" (the solid white rectangle icon on the back of the D300), and the focus mode to Continuous-servo AF (also known as AF-C) since the distance between me and the subject is always changing. Then I take a few shots and see what I get. Since wide-angle lenses have great depth-of-field pretty much everything is more or less in focus. But it also overly exaggerates the size of the nose compared to, say, the back legs.

Since I was in broad daylight I used my SB-800 flash to fill the shadows somewhat, and set the flash mode to slow-sync so that the foreground and background would be properly exposed.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom lens set at 18mm; shutter-priority mode with shutter speed set at 1/500 second and ISO 200; camera chose aperture of f/10; SB-800 used for fill-flash; flash mode set to SLOW; auto white balance; processed in Lightroom; shot in RAW.)

Harry

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom set at 31mm; program mode; camera chose 1/250 second at f/13 and ISO 200; daylight white balance; processed in Lightroom using the Creamtone preset; shot in RAW.)

Sadie's work here is done

Almost every day -- usually in the evening -- Sadie plays leap-frog with the dog beds in the living room. If I'm in an adjoining room I'll hear her woof, which means she's play-bowing -- oftentimes to no one in particular. Then I'll hear some panting, which means she's running around in circles. Then she'll run to one of three dog beds in the living room, place her front paws on the bed and pull the bed underneath while simultaneously leaping over it. This will go on for perhaps a minute or two. I say that Sadie is going "crackerdog".

Katie often watches as a spectator from a dog bed not subject to Sadie going crackerdog, although at times she does try to get Sadie to play with her. But on this occasion I caught Katie surveying Sadie's handiwork after she went crackerdog. I think the expression on Katie's face sums up her feelings better than I could describe them in words.

 

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom at 20mm; program mode;camera chose 1/30 sec and f/3.5 at ISO 2200; matrix-metered; processed in Lightroom with blue filter preset; normal JPG.) 

Katie's not sure of my sanity

I can't help myself: I love it when dogs tilt their heads, trying to comprehend what you're blathering about or what you're doing in their face. It's like they think you've lost your mind but still can't help themselves but look at the spectacle that is you.

Both Sadie and Katie do the head-tilt. I had both girls out on the front porch the other night at dusk to take some photos. Both tolerated my repeated attempts to get something decent in the nice but failing light. Amazingly, Katie was in no hurry to go back inside as she is often wont to do. So I tried photographing her from different angles: some below her, some at eye-level, some above her. She was a good sport through it all. I finally said, "cookie", and she started tilting her head to her left, then to her right.

I was trying to be careful about the background here. I didn't want too much of what was behind her to be a distraction. While focusing on her eyes I set the 50mm lens aperture at f/2 to blur both the foreground (see how her nose is a little fuzzy?) and background. After importing into Lightroom I dodged her eyes and left ear to lighten them, sharpened the area around her eyes, and finally added a slight vignette.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority; aperture set at f/2, camera chose 1/320 second; ISO 400; center-weighted metering; +0.3 exposure compensation; normal JPG.)

Sadie as if in graphite

I don't live to post-process: it's a chore, and I'd rather be out shooting. But part of the fun for me in post-processing pictures is trying out different Lightroom presets and seeing what I get. I'll first create a virtual copy which can be quickly discarded if I don't like the results (easier for me to play around with a virtual copy instead of repeatedly ctrl-z to undo things). Then it's preset play-time.

When I tried out a black-and-white preset on a Sadie photo I got a rendering that very much looks like some of these super-detailed graphite drawings that my wife loves. Other than making some minor exposure adjustments after applying the preset I cloned out a skin tag that Sadie has on her lower left eyelid.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/2, camera chose 1/250 sec; ISO 200; matrix-metered; cloudy white balance; normal JPG.)