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.)

Treasure (2001 - 2013)

Another of my Greyhound clients went to the Bridge yesterday: Treasure. I met her at Dewey Beach in 2011. Her owner asked me to get a close-up of her adorable front teeth:

I just saw Treasure and her owner at GIG a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't take any pictures of her then. I've always liked this one particular picture I took of the two of them during our session at Dewey:

I was trying to convey the closeness of their relationship by not only showing them walking together, but by showing their footprints as part of that companionship.

Your mom misses you, Treasure, as do all the people who came to know you.

Hijinks on hold

Sadie's developed a bone spur on her right hind foot, so until we get that sorted out she won't be running or playing around with Katie like this:

I am amazed seeing her facial expressions when she plays.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm VR zoom; shutter-priority mode with shutter speed set to 1/1000 second; camera set aperture at f/4.8 at ISO 2000; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Whalewatch Season Begins

It's the beginning of the 2012-2013 whalewatch season here in southern California. For us whalewatch naturalists it's time to go on board the Voyager and, with her crew, take passengers for a three-hour-long cruise out into Santa Monica Bay to see the marine life. From the last week of December through April we go out to look for the whales blues, fins, and grays; common, bottlenose, Risso's, and Pacific white-sided dolphins; Dall's porpoise; sea lions and harbor seals; gulls, brown pelicans; auklets; cormorants; grebes; scoters; shearwaters -- more birds than I can think of right now.

But the very first whalewatch trip of the season, on the day after Christmas, is for us naturalists only. It's to introduce the newest whalewatch naturalists on what they can expect to see and do while on the boat. Unfortunately, the weather this year conspired against us. Overnight it had rained, and after the storm had passed it was breezy and cold. A small-craft advisory had been issued for rough seas, so there was little chance of us going out past the breakwater and into open water. We had to settle for a very short up and back in the small marina.

Many of us had brought our cameras, so it was disappointing that we were denied the chance to photograph any whales that could be out there. But I tried to look for something to photograph, and it was towards the end of our short jaunt that I got this picture of a female California sea lion perched atop a buoy:

Then yesterday afternoon I had a whalewatch trip to do. This time the weather was perfect: bright, sunny skies, little wind, relatively flat seas. Because there had been fin whales sighted on the morning cruise it was planned to go back there for my afternoon trip. But once past the breakwater the plans were changed because there was a gray whale sighting just a few miles out. We found and followed it and possibly another whale heading south and rounding the peninsula. By the time we got to our turn-around spot at Point Vicente there were five gray whales all around us, although they were not visible all at once. It was a good show for the passengers.

Before we turned around and headed north for home we spied numerous small splashes on the horizon, getting progressively closer. They could only be dolphin. We steamed a bit in their direction, but then put our stern to them as the pod of common dolphin overtook us. Many of them passed on either side of the boat, but there were a number of them that chose to bow-ride. This pleased the passengers immensely: many of them gathered on either side of the bow to lean over the railing and watch the dolphins just below the surface.

It is not often that I have seen common dolphin leap high out of the water. And not having photographed dolphin in several months I was completely out of practice. Of all the pictures I took, this one is probably the best:

You can see more common dolphin in the background. They are such fun to watch -- I never get tired of seeing them.

As the season goes on I hope to get better shots than this. There have been orcas in these waters the past month (the latest sighting was on New Year's) and I'm hoping I'll be lucky enough to see them this season.

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 70-200mm VR zoom at 180mm; shutter-priority, with shutter speed set to 1/500 second; camera set aperture to f/4 at ISO 100; auto white balance; normal JPG.)

Dad on New Year's Eve

I wanted to get a few pictures of my Mom and Dad while they were in town during their California Christmas visit. They were standing in our front lawn when my uncle (my mom's older brother) stopped by to see them. My mom went over to talk to him and, as they chatted at camera right, my dad watched.

I was taking some test shots of my dad. I didn't want him posing or anything like that: I told him I was going to test to make sure my off-camera flash and Pocket Wizards were working together.

This is the first test shot:

 

I really shouldn't have bothered with fill-flash: the picture was really, really bad, and I had to do some post-processing to get a halfway decent picture. Sometimes I think my D600 has an overexposure problem in some situations, but I'm betting it's more operator error than anything else.

And on that note: Happy New Year, everyone. Be safe out there, and have fun. And thanks for stopping by and following my blog over the past year. 

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 50mm f/1.8 lens; shutter-priority mode, with shutter set to 1/160 second; camera chose f/3.5 at ISO 200; auto white balance; -2.0 flash compensation; normal JPG.) 

Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg Saturday

I spent the first weekend of November photographing the Greyhounds Rock Fredericksburg fundraiser in Fredericksburg, VA. The speakers for the event were Fabien Cousteau (son of Jean-Michel Cousteau, grandson of Jacques-Yves Cousteau -- remember "The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau" hour-long documentaries of his ocean research across the world? I was an avid watcher of those shows.) on Saturday, and Jim Nelson and René Agredano of Tripawds (I first learned of them in a PBS Nature episode Why We Love Cats and Dogs) on Sunday.

There were a few cancellations due to Hurricane Sandy passing by the area a few days earlier, but there was still a nice turn-out. Caryn Self-Sullivan gave a talk on clicker training:

While she talked, and since Sadie and Katie weren't with us and I needed a greyhound fix, I took a moment to massage Beka's ear:

In between talks, Jim Nelson and René Agredano of Tripawds and the Sunday morning speakers stopped by with their tripod dog Wyatt. What a great dog he is:

Patti Goettler of Greyt Hearts Service Dogs gave her talk about Greyhounds as service dogs:

This is Liberty, a Greyhound service dog:

Dr. Nancy Gustafson talked about canine osteosarcoma:

After a nice dinner in downtown Fredericksburg, we returned to the hotel. I took a picture of TJ, who is 28 months post-amputation due to osteo. I was astounded when I learned that:

Then it was time to listen to Fabien Cousteau discuss man's relationship with the ocean and all the animals that dwell in it. It was interesting to learn that his grandmother often brought a dog along whenever his grandfather's research vessel Calypso sailed on a voyage with Fabien aboard. This only reinforced his love of animals, and in particular his love of dogs.

He is a  really cool and down-to-earth guy. We had a great time talking to him.

After his talk was over I took a group picture:

I'll share a few pictures taken on Sunday in the next post.

Ava and Daisy at the Richardson House, Fredericksburg, VA

(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 70-200mm VR zoom and SB-800 flash; shutter-priority, shutter speed set to 1/500 second at f/5 at ISO 100; slow-sync; auto white balance; processed in Lightroom and DxO FilmPack 3.)

Joey

I had two sessions booked at Dewey for Saturday.

Joey was my first customer. She is a striking red. I met her and her owner Ruth across the street from our rental house and led them to the beach. We chit-chatted a bit to get to know each other as we approached the surf. I tried getting some pictures of them running along the water's edge:

Then I thought it might be nice to take a photo of their footprints in the sand (I haven't taken one yet that I've been supremely happy with):

The sunlight was still low enough in the sky so the shadows were not overly harsh.

The most special moment of the session for me was when Joey and Ruth sat on the sand together for awhile. It was soon obvious to me that they have a very close relationship. I decided to stand off a ways and use my wide-angle zoom to show them together under the immense sky that Saturday morning:

I decided to make a virtual copy of this and convert it to black-and-white:

I did the same for the next picture:

Then I thought I'd go in the opposite direction, taking some zoomed-in shots while still far away:

You can see that the large aperture (f/2.8) I was using blurs the background nicely while still retaining enough depth-of-field to keep Joey and Ruth sharp.

Finally, one last shot of them together:

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 10-24mm zoom, 50mm prime, and 70-200mm VR zoom lenses; shot in RAW; converted to JPG using Lightroom.)

Nine in July

Whenever an upcoming greyhound retirement day is announced I look forward to it. It's always fun to see the new arrivals. And it's interesting to see glimpses of their personalities, even through the stress of leaving the familiar territory of racetrack and kennel.

Since it was around noontime the shadows were strong and deep, so I used my flash to lighten them. Even then I did not set the flash compensation to 0, but instead used my usual -0.7. Turning down the flash's power when standing under the shade of a tree results in the picture being a little dark but the shadows created by the flash are not too obvious:

On the other hand, for this picture I set the flash compensation back to 0 because I was standing in brilliant sunshine:

It's more obvious that I used flash here.

Most of the time I just take head shots of the greyhounds. But I wanted to get both the greyhound and Marissa both in the same shot here:

There was a certain black-and-white female greyhound named "Pookie" that a lot of people noticed and liked immediately. Here are several pictures of her:

She got very excited being talked to in baby-talk -- she has a very happy tail.

Jesse the Chinese Crested did his part in small-dog testing (he played the part of the small dog):

With this group of dogs Jesse pretty much had no problem with any of them.

Kinko again played the part of the cat. Doesn't this need the caption "Draw me like one of your French girls"?:

(Look that up if you don't know what I'm referring to.)

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200mm zoom, the 50mm lens, and the SB-800 flash. Normal JPG.)

Greyhounds fly at Gettysburg

On Sunday morning at GIG there were two speed runs held at the Gettysburg Recreational Park's baseball field. The speed runs lets owners run their Greyhounds from one end to the other within an enclosed, fenced area. (I'm guessing it was almost a couple hundred feet in length.) At the far end a person hold a radar gun to measure the Greyhound's speed as it approaches. Speeds measured in the 30-40mph range were common; the highest speed I heard recorded was 41.

I went to the second speed run, and stood about two-thirds of the way from the starting point. At first I had my continuous frame rate set to 3 frames a second, but then decided I switch to the higher, 5fps rate. In doing so I was able to get a number of Greyhounds with all four feet off the ground, with the dog at full extension (which is a characteristic of their double-suspension stride).

It's such an amazing thing to see:

I used shutter-priority mode for these; the shutter speed was set to 1/2000 second, and the camera set the aperture to f/5.6 at ISO 400. Also, I used one focus area and tried to keep it centered on the dogs' body as much as possible. And I was also zooming out from the dogs got closer to me. I don't have any shots of the Greyhounds as they passed by: using the 70-200mm zoom at the 70mm setting was much too close for me to get the entire dog to fit within the viewfinder.

This is about as close as I'll get to see Greyhounds running full-out, unless I get the chance to go to a dog track, lure course, or NOTRA event.

Behold the grace and beauty that is the Greyhound

 

 

So there.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 70-200mm VR zoom; shutter-priority, with shutter set to 1/3200 second; camera set aperture to f/3.5 at ISO 400; auto white balance; matrix-metered; normal JPG.) 

A perfect picture

At the Blur of Fur run at the Greyhound Gang's event both Sadie and Katie participated. Both girls ran twice. For Sadie's second run she would run after me. I had the "advantage" of starting before her, as well as starting further down the run. I was sure that it wouldn't take much to get her to chase after me. All I had to do was run for all I was worth away from her and she would automatically go. That's her nature. And I knew she would have no trouble overtaking me before I got close to the end.

Gayle stood at the end of the run to take our pictures. I had my D300 set to shutter-priority and added one stop of exposure because the sun was at our backs, otherwise the shadows would be too deep.

At the signal I took off. Then, after I had run for a few seconds, Sadie started after me. I thought she might try to jump on me as she passed. You see, we jog sometimes during our walks. And when we jog she gets playful: she jumps alongside me, or clamps her mouth around the back of my hand and tries to lead me down the street. But not this time. She kept her eye on me as she passed, then turned around and waited for me while Gayle kept photographing.

I'm glad that Gayle took this. I've looked at this picture many, many times. The picture shows something that I cannot put into words. The picture shows, in one moment, the relationship that Sadie and I have. The picture is perfect.

(Shot with the Nikon D300 using the 18-200 zoom lens; shutter-priority, with shutter speed set to 1/2000 second; camera chose aperture of f/5.3 at ISO 1800; +1 exposure compensation, auto white balance; normal JPG.)