I flew to Baltimore on Wednesday of last week and stayed overnight with greyhound friends of mine. The next day I drove up to Pennsylvania and overnighted with another friend who lives not far from Gettysburg. This particular friend has four dogs (two of them galgos), volunteered for years to move galgos out of Spain, and set up a non-profit to continue rescuing galgos after she moved here from the Netherlands three years ago.
After dinner we spent most of the evening chatting. Soon after her husband excused himself to go to bed, his empty spot on the sofa was soon occupied by her two galgos. Eventually they both fell asleep there, but before they did her white galga, Cara, looked up to see what was going on in the kitchen.
She is a stunning girl. I chose an aperture of f/8 to get as crisp a picture as possible, knowing that in the dim light from the table lamp the shutter speed would be long and the ISO would be high. Fortunately having a VR lens makes getting a picture in lighting situations such as this very easy.
I decided her picture might look better in black-and-white, so after I returned home I imported it into Lightroom to see what I'd get. I just added some underexposure and burned in her tail a bit so it wouldn't disappear in front of her chest.
(Shot with the Nikon D600 using the 105mm VR f/2.8 lens; aperture-priority mode; aperture set to f/8; camera chose shutter speed of 1/20 second at ISO 6400; fluorescent white balance; -0.7 exposure compensation; normal JPG.)
Okay, I am in total and complete envy! I have admired Cara, and Petra's photos of her, for years! Of all the dogs I'd like to meet and take a picture of, Cara is pretty close to the top of the list. Your photo of her is beautiful!
ReplyDeletecarrie, i thought you would have seen her and lehto at GIG last year. you would be surprised at how tall lehto has gotten. tall -- and still gangly. he's two now, but still very much a puppy. i commented to petra, after lehto and i got into some rough-housing earlier, that at times he plays very much like sadie.
DeleteBreathtaking! I have a secret dream to have a Galgo one day. I hope GIG went well. I'm so sad we didn't go this year. I hope we get to go next year.
ReplyDeleteGIG went extremely well, i think -- this being the first year that Nittany Greyhounds has run the event. there were some snafus regarding a number of attendees who had reserved rooms for thursday night at the eisenhower getting bumped to other hotels at short notice. the eisenhower changed ownership during the time between this year's GIG and last year's. but the expo center next to the eisenhower had plenty of grassy areas for the dogs to walk around on. the vendors were under one roof and there appeared to be sufficient room for everyone. as an added benefit the greys no longer had to contend with a hot asphalt parking lot. many more vendors were there (me being one of them). you may read about varied experiences with its hotel rooms (one reason why i stayed in the travelodge downtown). despite the problems with the reservations at the eisenhower i think GIG went well.
DeleteOh, I love Cara and Lehto thanks to the power of Facebook! What a beautiful photo you took of a gorgeous Galga. She is a stunner.
ReplyDeleteit's so easy to fall in love with her. while i was there she did not do anything to warrant the "little white monster" moniker.
Delete