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.)

Bonding

Boo and my Dad were in their own bubble, sharing a moment in time.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 70-200mm VR; aperture-priority with aperture at f/4; shutter speed 1/320 at ISO 1000; auto white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG.)

Bean is ready to play

Bean loves squeaky toys. And if they bounce, so much the better. I caught her one October afternoon playing with a Sprong® dog toy when she saw me, then grabbed the toy in her mouth and paused at the steps leading to the living room, waiting for me to play with her. I had my big, heavy 70-200mm VR with me, hoping she'd stay still long enough for me to get a few shots. To get more light into the house I opened the front door before I started shooting.

This is a close crop of the best of several pictures that I took as she waited on me. In the original picture I had composed the picture with Bean in the upper right corner of the viewfinder. As she was standing beyond the end of a wooden cabinet I wanted the bottom edge of the cabinet side and the lines of the hardwood flooring to draw your eye to Bean. I had to burn in the background behind her to make it less distracting. I donated a print of this to a greyhound event for their auction.

I can't help but think of how Sadie and Bean might have gotten along had Sadie lived long enough to have met Bean. I bet it would've been good, even though Sadie was over 10 years older than Bean.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 70-200mm VR zoom; matrix-metered; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/4; shutter speed 1/30 second at ISO 900; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

One of these Saturday morning schoolers is not like the others

A photograph I took on 7.11.15 at the Iowa Greyhound Park of Saturday morning schoolers running in a schooling race. Schooling races are run to help trainers evaluate their dogs before they're permitted to run in their first official race.

Pictured here are #1 Superior Tickle, #2 Billy The Kid, #4 Roc A By Metal, #5 Tuff and Ruff, and #7 Wl Lonesome Girl. Tuff and Ruff won this particular race.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 with the 70-200mm VR zoom; shutter-priority with shutter set to 1/2000 second; aperture f/5.6 at ISO 900; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Running with scissors

Bean is the doggiest dog we've ever adopted. We got glimpses of what that was like when we met Bean for the first time and watched her play with balls, pinecones, and tree branches in Aimée's backyard. So as she settled into our home Bean noticed that we also had small pinecones in our little backyard. It didn't take too long before she grabbed one and started to run with it in her mouth:

She has a lot of fun playing and running with them but we cringe a bit as we have to be mindful of her weak leg that can sometimes go out from under her and make her fall. The leg doesn't seem to bother her much as long as she doesn't play on hard surfaces like concrete or asphalt for too long. (She often wears a Therapaw on hard surfaces.) Then it seems to get sore and she tries not to put too much weight on it. Still, we want her to have fun -- it's too hard to try and keep a young dog like her down.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and the 105mm lens; aperture-priority with aperture set to f/4; camera set shutter speed to 1/640 second at ISO 800; auto white balance; normal JPG, processed with Lightroom.)

The Puppy Bean Roadtrip, part 6

It was just as well we stayed a day longer in Minnesota than we had originally planned. The drive from Omaha to Grand Junction was dreary, gray, and mostly rainy. But the interstates were clear of traffic for most of the day's drive. Still, I wondered what the Eisenhower tunnel would look like and how much snow remained on or along the road.

South of Denver and climbing up the Front Range of the Rockies we ran into this:

Before we got to the tunnel we decided to pull over in Georgetown and stretch our legs. There was plenty of snow on the ground, so we let Bean play around in it. We figure it will be the last time in quite awhile until we can drive her up to our local mountains around Los Angeles during a winter where we actually will have some decent snow.

Note the small herd of deer visible in the background above Rachel's head.

After playing in the snow Bean decided to cool her rump:

Then it was back into the van. At the tunnel entrance we had to stop and sit for some minutes before being allowed to pass through and head down the other side.

Through it all, Bean traveled in the van better than I could have hoped. She repeated her traveling routine from the day before by napping, eating a few treats, and gently playing and squeaking some of her toys. She was so easy.

When we arrived at my parents' home we introduced Bean to them. Both Mom and Dad took a liking to her right away. Their black cat, Mischa, kept herself at a distance so Bean didn't get much of a chance to show her any interest.

After several hours' of sleep we got up early in the morning to start the final leg home. Feeling a little groggy we laid on the carpet for a few moments. Dad came over and laid down in front of Bean; she responded by giving him a nose-bump to the eye. Such a sweet gesture by her -- which is a testament to this dog breed.

Before we left I got in several pictures of Bean with my parents.

(My apologies to those who have never seen a leg amputee before: my dad was in an airplane accident while serving in the Air Force.)

Bean slept and played in the van all the way back to California where this journey began some eight days and nearly 4000 miles ago. After a two-month absence, it was so good to have a greyhound back in the house again.

The Puppy Bean Roadtrip, part 3

I refrained from taking any pictures of puppy Bean when we arrived at Aimée's home the day before as I wanted to just take in what was happening (although I did take a video of Rachel meeting Bean in the backyard). This was the first picture I took of her while she was playing with a toy on Friday morning:

And then there was this one:

She was woolly from living in the cold climate of Iowa and Minnesota. We've become familiar with this look on her face in the second picture.

In the meantime, two of Aimée's Greyhounds kept their eye on us. Boo:

Dazzle:

Later that morning Bean decided to "help" Aimée with collecting a garden hose:

 

I don't know...I don't call this "help"-ing in my book.

One thing we found out quickly is that she loves to chase after balls:

Despite having had two broken non-weight-bearing toes on two diagonally-opposite feet and a suspect right hind leg, she ran like it never posed a problem. I happen to like the middle picture of the three above -- the leap to pounce on the ball just shows me her joy at play.

After noon Aimée drove us to Minnehaha Falls. Pretty cool that the falls are in a city park:

Aimée pauses to give Boo a smooch:

After getting lunch at the Walker Art Center and walking around its sculpture garden we went back to Aimée's to relax before a little get-together dinner was planned to celebrate Bean's gotcha day. Rachel could not resist playing with Zorba (left) and Sid:

That night we got to meet some of Aimée's and Stuart's friends and met the president of GPA-MN, the adoption group we worked with to adopt Bean. We signed the adoption papers and she was officially ours!

Meanwhile, down at the farm...

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens; shutter-priority with shutter speed set to 1/250 second at f/22 at ISO 800; auto white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG; processed with Lightroom.)

Gypsy

I was running into a problem when I started working on Gypsy's session pictures at last year's Dewey Beach: everything was looking uninspired and dreary. What to do?

I thought I would add a lot more exposure than I usually do just because I wanted her to stand out more. So I added some black to sharpen things up a bit, and added a slight vignette. Even then the sky in the background was pretty featureless, so I played around with using a gradient filter and added some underexposure to see if I could get some details in the clouds to show up. That helped with what I had in mind. Then I did a bit of cropping and digitally removed her leash.



For the picture below, I'm exploring my photojournalist-wannabe side. I didn't want a standard pose here. After I uploaded the picture I felt like the image's vibe was ambiguous, or perhaps you weren't sure how how Gypsy is feeling (well? ill? stressed?) under a threatening sky at the moment:



She was actually turning to her right to present her profile to me.

I sometimes do this to see if I can see the scene in front of me differently. It doesn't always work (just like most of my pictures don't work) but it keeps things interesting, and helps me to keep trying to get better at seeing the world around me.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 18-35mm zoom; aperture-priority, with aperture set to f/8 and 1/160 second in top picture; shutter-priority, with shutter speed set to1/1600 second and aperture of f/4.5 in bottom; center-weighted metered; +0.7 exposure compensation in top picture, +0 in bottom; shot in RAW, converted to DNG, and imported into Lightroom.)

Miami, meet Ocean

You will sometimes hear of a list of things that racing Greyhounds may not have encountered during their racing careers before heading off to their adopted homes: linoleum flooring, stairs, city traffic...or the ocean.

Miami had not seen the Atlantic before Saturday's photo shoot at Dewey. How would he react to getting his feet wet with sea foam blowing all over?

Miami, meet Ocean:

No problem! Success!

(I've digitally removed his leash, incidentally.)

Not only was this the first time Miami had seen the ocean, it was also the first time for his companions Thyme (Greyhound) and Izaskun (Galgo), too.

I added some exposure in post-processing to keep Miami's white fur from looking a dingy gray. Some highlights were lost but that didn't really matter to me — I also didn't want his eyes to look like two dark holes in his head.

As an aside, Miami was profiled recently in a local news story in Philadelphia.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 105mm VR macro; aperture-priority, with aperutre varying from f/2.8 to f/5.6; shutter speed varied from 1/1000 to 1/3200 second; ISO varied from 100 to 400; +0.7 exposure compensation; center-weighted metering; auto white balance; shot in RAW, converted to DNG, and imported into Lightroom.)

Windhund

It was windy at last year's Dewey. And kind of rainy. And windy. It was like this for five days.

And I couldn't think of a better title.
 
This is Jen and Kasey braving the wind and ocean spray during her session. I was trying to show their small figures in context with the large waves pounding the beach and the big overcast sky. Not really breaking any new ground here: it's just a woman and her Greyhound.

We had the entire beach to ourselves because nobody in their right mind would spend a lot of time out there.

But still, it is a picture of Jen and Kasey on a windswept beach during the worst weather I've ever experienced at Dewey. And it counts for something because I've rarely taken pictures in bad weather like this and made the best of it. Fortunately the wind and spray didn't bother either of them at all.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 and 105mm lens; shutter-priority with shutter set to 1/1000 second, f/7.1 at ISO 100; center-weighted metered; auto white balance; shot in RAW, converted to DNG, and imported into Lightroom.)

Sammy, Harry, and Loki...and photographing the black Greyhound

A long time ago I was asked by Carrie of Tales and Tails about how to photograph black Greyhounds. I'll share a few suggestions on how I photograph them that you might find helpful:

• Photograph black Greyhounds in shade whenever possible (pictured: Sammy, photographed in open shade):

• Avoid mid-day, direct sunlight, if possible, to prevent hot spots on the fur. I prefer to photograph in the early morning or late afternoon when the light is softer and comes in at a lower angle (pictured: Harry, photographed around 9AM):

• If you do use flash outdoors, lower the camera's flash compensation to -1 (or whatever value you prefer) to keep the fur from appearing too shiny as black Greyhounds tend to be that way. (On Nikons, this button is used to control the flash's output when used in combination with turning the command dial either left or right. Image copyright Ken Rockwell.). I set the camera's flash exposure mode to slow-sync, which allows the camera to keep both the background and the subject properly exposed. And if your flash has a tilting head, point it up at least 45 degrees and use a flash diffuser if you have one to soften the light further (pictured: Loki, photographed in late afternoon with flash compensation of -1 and slow-sync):

These are just suggestions which give me the results I'm looking for. Play around with the various settings until you find the values that you like.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 50mm and 105mm VR lens. All shot in RAW, converted to DNG, and imported into Lightroom.)

Some of my favorite photos I took during 2013 (part 2)

Jewel:

Thyme:

Heyokha:

Sadie (belongs to a different owner):

Gypsy:

Laika:

Isis:

Boo:

Violet:

Ringo:

Holly:

Speed Racer:

Mary, Speed Racer, and Trixie:

Cat and Sully:

Rocky:

(All photos taken with the Nikon D600, 50mm, and 105mm lens; shot in RAW, converted to DNG, and imported into Lightroom.)