Bailee-Mae

Last week, on a warm (mid-70s!) January afternoon, I had a photo shoot with three pups: Bailee-Mae, LouLou, and Tink. Bailee-Mae is thirteen and a mixed-breed. Friendly. A tail-wagger. Big puppy feet. And soft, thick fur.

Trying to photograph three dogs individually when all are in the same room is not the ideal way to get any one of them photographed. So after getting a few photos of her (like this one):

Bailee-Mae was put in the kitchen behind a baby gate while I spent some time with the greyhounds LouLou and Tink. She quietly waited for her turn:

Then I went back and shot a few more pictures of the greyhounds. When I looked back at her, she gave me this face:

Ack! Okay, I said, let's try and take everyone out into the backyard and see what we can get. Switching from my 50mm to the 70-200mm I tried to back away far enough so that I was outside that zoom lens' minimum focusing distance of five feet:

I think perhaps the following photo turned out just as I had imagined it:

Focusing on Bailee-Mae's face, a relatively wide aperture (f/4) makes a nice transition from her to her owner.

With a bit of good fortune and a pleased owner I'll get to do another photo shoot with these pups again.