Pain and Remembrance

I don't know if anyone is still reading this blog or not; I haven't added anything to this blog since a couple of weeks after Sadie died on St. Patrick's Day. I am sorry if you've been holding out and waiting for the past three months for something new from me. Her death had stolen most, if not all, of my motivation to write about pictures I have taken of Greyhounds and their owners. Oh, I do have plenty of pictures to share and give you a little background about them...but writing about it had seemed pointless without her (or Katie, for that matter).

We were without Greyhounds (or dogs) in the house for the first time in twenty years. That span lasted for two months, and it was the worst two months ever.

Fortunately I had planned to join two of my friends on an East Coast roadtrip to see a third friend run in the Boston Marathon for the first time. And I was lucky that I had photo shoots to do with a customer in Williamsburg, NY, and at the Greyhounds in Gettysburg event in late April. It was a great distraction for me, but still I caught myself weeping several times (like on the Amtrak train that we took from Boston to New York, or on the Metro in New York) because I missed her so much. My two traveling companions understood, and helped me a great deal.

And shortly after returning from Gettysburg our daughter and I prepared to drive to Minnesota and back to pick up a seven-month-old female Greyhound puppy (who our daughter named "Bean"), fostered for two months by my friend Aimée and her husband.

I promise to write about how Puppy Bean came to join our family in the very near future.

It was early this evening that Puppy Bean was lying on the front lawn, and I was sitting and watching her while holding the end of her leash. And as I watched I was suddenly reminded of a picture I took of Katie eleven days after her leg amputation. So I took our my smartphone and tried to get a picture of Bean as I had done with Katie.

As I tried to frame the picture it then occurred to me that tomorrow (Tuesday, 8 July) will be a year and a week since Katie's operation. It again saddened me terribly that she was no longer here, and those feelings of loss overcame me anew. I remembered what I told her at the end:

"I'm so sorry, Katie, that we could not save you."

As I have told some of my Greyhound friends who let me vent and hug and cry on their shoulders about Katie since her death, I will forever resent the fact that we did not even get the chance to treat her for the lymphoma that eventually took her so swiftly from us. If we just had the chance...

Today is World Galgo Day

Today is World Galgo Day, which was set aside to publicize their situation in Spain. The plight of the galgo (also known as the Spanish Greyhound) in Spain, especially after the end of the hunting season (which happens to be now), is heartbreaking and horrifying. I will not post any pictures here of what happens to all too many of them, but suffice it to say that you can use Google to search and see for yourself. Fortunately there are people and organizations both here in the US (SAGE, GRIN, Scooby North America) and in Europe (Scooby, BaasGalgo, Galgos del Sol, Fundación Benjamín Mehnert) who do their utmost to rescue (and I mean, rescue) them.

What I will do here is to show you some pictures of Galgos that I've met in private photo sessions.

Izaskun:

Romeo:

Tadeo:

Lehto:

Cara:

Adopting a galgo is not quite as hard as you might think.

Thanks to all the volunteers and organizations that help these wonderful dogs.

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 1)

Bailee-Mae and Julie:

Andy:

Winston in Marsh Creek:

Tangerine:

Izaskun near the Peach Orchard:

Miami near the Peach Orchard:

Daisy wades in Marsh Creek:

Honda:

Duncan:

Axel, Janel, and Duncan:

PieSky:

(All shot with the Nikon D300 and D600 using the 18-35mm, 50mm, or 105mm lens; shot in RAW, converted to DNG and imported into Lightroom.)

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.)

Miami #2

I had hoped for more clouds in the western sky for a more dramatic sunset, but what the heck -- it's Gettysburg and there are so many places to photograph. I had Miami pose for me in the grassy fields north of the peach orchard. I added some fill in post-process because using a flash here would've made its presence too obvious.

The Sherfy barn, which sits next to Emmitsburg Road, is the red building in the background.

The leash was digitally removed in case you were wondering.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 10-24mm zoom; manual mode; 20mm, 1/60 second at f/4.5 and ISO 200; auto white balance; center-weighted metered; +1 exposure compensation; shot in RAW and imported into Lightroom.)

Izaskun the galga at sunset

(Note: leash digitally removed.)

(Shot with the Nikon D300 and the 10-24mm zoom at 17mm; aperture-priority, with aperture set at f/5.6; camera set shutter speed of 1/125 second at ISO 200; auto white balance; matrix-metered; shot in RAW and converted in Lightroom.)

Winston

When I went to the Greyhounds In Gettysburg event this year I flew to Baltimore a day earlier (on Wednesday) than I had done in previous years so I could meet up with Gretchen and her two English coonhounds on Thursday afternoon. We met at Sachs Covered Bridge and stayed downstream of the bridge. Downstream of the bridge there are a couple of footpaths that one can walk alongside Marsh Creek. We walked down one of those paths until we got to a place where we thought Winston might want to step into the creek.

It was clear to Gretchen that Winston was very excited just being outdoors and sniffing whatever new smells there were by the creek. Unlike last year the trees were late in displaying their spring greenery, so there was a lot more sun and harsh shadows than I preferred. Winston was just dipping his front paws into the creek when I tried to hold my camera down low and blindly pointed it in his direction, taking one fill-flashed picture with my D300 and the SB-400 flash attached to its hot shoe.

When I got home I thought I'd try using a Lightroom preset for a different look.

We walked back to the bridge and fortunately there were few people around while I took a couple of pictures of Gretchen and Winston.

Lately I've been trying to capture a bit of something that describes the relationship between owner and pet. Most owners beg off from being included in a picture, but I'm glad that Gretchen was more than willing to be a part of the picture. I think it makes for a stronger image:

(Shot with the Nikon D300, Nikon 10-24mm zoom (top picture) and SB-400 flash; Nikon D600 and 50mm lens; aperture-priority; center-weighted; shot in RAW and converted to JPG using Lightroom.)

Fun with treats

During one photoshoot that I did during the Greyhounds in Gettysburg event (held at the end of last month) I had three Greyhounds jumping for treats at their owner's suggestion. This was to try and get some action shots of them. (Speaking of which: our two girls rarely jump for treats, and I would venture to say that a fair number of Greyhounds don't either. In fact our first Greyhound, Alex, would just follow the trajectory, from hand to ground, of any treat tossed to him. You could even bounce a dog cookie off his head and he would still not jump for it. This causes some people to think that Greyhounds are not particularly bright.)

Having not tried capturing this sort of action before, I went with shutter-priority and picked a shutter speed of 1/500 second to start with and adjusted accordingly.

Here are the contestants -- Tanzanite ("Tanzi" for short):

Opal:

Emerald:

We took the dogs individually and their owner tossed a cookie in the air while I tried to anticipate where the dogs were going to be when they jumped and caught it. In hindsight I would've made my job easier, I think, if I took a series of shots of each attempt. Instead, I took one shot per attempt, and taking it before the dog snapped at the treat.

Naturally there were a lot of misfires:

But then there are the succesful shots. Opal:

Emerald:

Tanzanite:

I learned that I need more practice. Now, if only our girls would cooperate...

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 50mm f/1.8 AF-D lens; shutter-priority mode with shutter speeds set at 1/500 or 1/1000 second; aperture varied from f/2 to f/4; ISO varied from 100 to 800; center-weighted metering; auto white balance; normal JPG; post-processed in 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.)

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.