Project 52, week 22: Horizons

For our weekly photography challenge, we are studying horizons. The definition of horizon is the line at which the earth's surface and sky appear to meet. I spent a couple of days trying to figure out where I could go in Charlotte NC to find a place where I could actually see the horizon and put a dog safely in front of it to get a decent photo. I ended up with this image and below is the story of how I got here.

My two best photography assistants are 12 and 13 years old (they are my neighbor's daughters.) They were out of school over this long weekend so I had them booked to help me on multiple photo sessions over the weekend.  Ideally I wanted to find a great location for shooting horizons but I also planned to try out a couple of new locations to use for future photography sessions with clients. There is a park on the outskirts of uptown Charlotte that I've wanted to get a dog too so I decided to take Jax. Jax is a small mixed breed puppy that I knew would be easy for my assistant to handle. I got a couple of nice photos of him (to see them go to my Instagram page) but none of them included the horizon.

The next pup I photographed was Ivy and unfortunately Tropical Storm Bonnie rolled in during my shoot with her. I DID GET HER IN FRONT OF A COLORFUL WALL THOUGH!!! For those reading this in the pet photography challenge, they'll understand. :) I posted a photo of Ivy in front of the wall on my Instagram. However, I want to go back and do the shots again. It was sunset on Saturday night in an area of town that gets more lively at night and I had a 12 year old, a 13 year old and a client's dog with me. To get the shot, I needed to lie down on the pavement just at the entrance of this building's parking lot.  In the photos I took, I'm not low enough in the shots because I was too chicken to lie down so I will go back. AND...... Let's just say I wanted to get the 12 yr old and 13 yr old out of this setting. :) We were totally safe the whole time but let's just say the building with the brightly painted side we were using required some explaining and that conversation as a non-parent was something I was not comfortable having!  HA!!

So, afraid that I might not ever be able to utilize the services of the 12 and 13 year old again after they got home and told their moms about where I took them, I mustered up the courage to ask them if they could help me on Monday. Kelly said YES! So at noon on a cloudy day, we took my crazy dog Moose to this setting. (Wow, I didn't intend for this post to be so long so if you've made it this far congratulations!)

My guy Moose has a wild streak. We adopted him at the age of 7 and we've had him for 1.5 years. Within a week of having him he locked himself in our laundry room and then tried to claw and chew his way out. We learned very quickly that he suffers from separation anxiety. We've figured out how to manage that now and he really is a good dog. Really he is.... about 75% of the time as my husband says.  We think he is a lab/hound mix, perhaps weimeraner or german short haired pointer. He is definitely some sort of hound and he has NO RECALL what so ever and because of his hound-like qualities I am reluctant to take him on photo shoots. Monday reinforced my hesitation.

First of all, all of us are fine. Moose is fine. Kelly my assistant is fine. I am fine. My sunglasses, however are not so fine. They are on their way to Maui Jim to be repaired. Kelly's knees may be a little bruised. Moose.... well he is sleeping well this afternoon. The big guy had a big day and big fun!

To set the stage, Sunday evening around 8pm as I am driving from one pet sitting client to the next, the sun is setting and it looks amazing. I decide to take a different route to enjoy the view and as I am enjoying it, I see a large open space that I think, "Hmmm, I could put a dog there with the horizon in the background and that might be nice." So on Monday, I ask Kelly if she is game. Amazingly (after spending most of Saturday with me, she says yes. AND she knows the dog model is Moose.  This is huge!) She is game so I take what I can get: we go at 12:30pm. It is cloudy so this might be okay.

Have I mentioned this open field is in front of probably the biggest church in Charlotte? Google Calvary Church Charlotte NC. Locals call it the Pink Castle. This is where we are. I have Kelly take Moose about 50 yards from me and I snap a few shots. I am on my stomach so I can play around with where I want the horizon.

I asked Kelly to run towards me with Moose and this is where the first sign of trouble begins AND I captured it all on film although the photos are blurry. Moose and Kelly are running towards me and then in one frame you see the look in Moose's eye and I know immediately that this is not good. That look in Moose's eye is his "I am having a great time look" and he picks up speed.  Too much speed for Kelly to keep up. She ends up tripping and drops Moose's leash. She immediately hops up and runs after him because of course he keeps running... and not towards me. Luckily the hound in him takes over and he has to stop and sniff a bush so I yell at Kelly to step on his leash.  She does and we have once again have our model under control. Bless Kelly's heart, she is apologizing for dropping the leash and it's totally not her fault. I have a crazy dog.

So, we wrangle our subject for a few more photos and I am quite pleased with the results. Although in looking at them now, I want to go back again. But all in all, I am very happy.

Unfortunately, getting into the car led to the demise of my sunglasses. Moose smelled treats in the front seat and he stepped on my sunglasses which were on my console when he got in. (He's a hefty 90lbs.)

It turned out to be a good day. I found a location for a horizon shot when I really wasn't sure I'd find a place and I got a photo of my dog Moose that I like which is no easy task... b/c well he's Moose!

I believe I may start a blooper blog post series...... with Moose it seems appropriate!

So, back to horizons. I think when you insert a dog into the photo with a horizon, where the dog is trumps where the horizon is. I would like to go back and try this again and be closer to my subject. I was pretty far away from Moose. Getting closer to them would've allowed me to have even more sky in the photos but I've found that when I try to photograph Moose, if I try to get close to him, he always breaks his stay and wants to come over to me. Plus, I was in survival mode... let's get through this photo shoot with Kelly, myself and crazy Moose unharmed!

Next up in the blog circle is St. Cloud Minnesota based dog photographer, About A Dog Photography.  Be sure to click the link at the end of each post and you'll end up right back here!

Barkelona Day 2: Photo Session with Pruna and Boira

Every time I go to write a post about my photo sessions in Spain, I think "this photo session I'm writing about resulted in some of my favorite images." I guess I am lucky that way in that I probably have one image from each session that I can call a favorite. These two dogs Boira and Pruna definitely fall into this category. Pruna is a year old Spanish Water Dog and Boira was all puppy! She is a 5 month old Portuguese Water dog. Pruna had just gotten a haircut. Apparently her hair can look a lot like Boira's when it is long. This was my first time meeting a Spanish Water Dog and she was beautiful!

I really want to get a huge wall art piece of that photo of Boira. (and that is why these photos are LARGE.  I didn't resize them as I usually do.) As a photographer, I take photos and I do have my favorites. That has nothing to do with the dog itself or even how the dog looks, it has to do with my ability as a photographer. I hope that makes sense. This image of Boira is one of those. I never really knew I was drawn to the color yellow but in photography, I am. It's been over a month now that I've been home from Spain and every time I see this photo of Boira, I still love it. I hope that feeling never goes away. I do look at the image and I can see things that aren't technically correct with it but I still love it and hey, I'm the photographer so that is my right! :)

Project 52 - week 21: Leading Lines

For our week 21 challenge, we are to create images with leading lines. The author of the book we are using says that "the eye will follow a line." In the first image below, the lines are really obvious and they are leading you to the subject. Her name is Delilah and she lasted up on this bench for about 10 seconds which may have something to do with the look in her eyes. :) She jumped off and got the zoomies right after I snapped this. She was a good sport though and I appreciate her helping me this week.  I snapped a few more of photos of Delilah and her half sister Lucca while they were on the deck.  Do you think the lines add anything to the last two images?  Would it look much different if they were standing on their driveway with no lines beneath them?  I so appreciate these weekly exercises as they make me ask myself these types of questions.  Forever learning about photography.... :)

I was hoping to take some photographs this week with images of more implied lines but unfortunately I didn't get a chance. As I was driving through the Virginia countryside this past weekend I saw a train track below me leading into a forest of dense trees. Our challenge to use leading lines this week popped into my head because when I think of leading lines I think of a curved path similar to those train tracks.

I also have a vision in my head of a photograph I want to take.  It is of my husband and his dog (our dog :) ) Willow walking away from me down a path. There is something about watching the two of them when they're on a walk that just makes me happy. Willow is my dog that doesn't like any sound my camera makes so this type of photo would be a good one to take of her. I need to add that photo to my list of photos I plan to take (because I have not forgotten about taking a photo of a dog in front of the graffiti wall I found while researching last week's challenge colorful.) School will be out soon and my two favorite photography assistants will be available to help me. Hopefully then I can start to cross some of these photos on my "to do" list off the list. Yay summer!

Next up in our blog circle is About A Dog Photography, St. Cloud MN dog photographer.  Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each blog and then you'll end up back here when you're finished.  Enjoy!

Project 52 - week 20: Colorful

This week our theme is colorful. Should be an easy and fun theme, huh? Before I describe my week, I will commit now to circling back around to this one very soon and trying again. One of the goals in participating in this 52 week pet photography challenge is to be out there photographing every week. With my schedule and full time dog walking & pet sitting job, it is easy for me to leave my camera in my camera bag for days. I am sure that is probably the case for a lot of us.

However, one of my personal reasons for participating is to learn. I want to learn more about photography any and every chance I get. What I didn't necessarily expect to get out of this, was to learn about myself. But I have. I have learned that I shouldn't procrastinate and today Thursday 5/19 is a good reminder. This blog post with its colorful images will go live Friday morning. Waiting until Thursday to plan to take the photos I'm going to use and then I wake up to rain is a problem since I only shoot outdoors. As I am typing this, I am wondering should I try for colorful photos inside my house? Should I wait and see if the rain clears out and try to get some photos later today or tonight? That is the question. Keep reading and you'll find out because as I'm typing this right now, I'm not sure of the answer. Ha!

I did actually do some research for this theme this past Saturday. On my giant and ever growing "To Do" list is finding new locations for photo sessions so as I was out scouting around, I found a really great colorful wall of graffiti. The problem is when I found it, it was about 1pm in the afternoon and even if I did want to take photos then, I had no four legged furry friend with me. I do have a cell phone photo of the wall (and I may just post it so you can see it and I can prove that I really was trying to find a colorful location.) I am committing to getting a dog in front of that wall soon. When I do, I will post the photos so be sure to check back.

In looking through my archive photos, I don't have a lot that I would really call colorful. I love colorful though. Think Dog Breath Photography (go to her site if you don't know it and you will see lots of color!) Recently I saw a photo of a dog in a field of tulips. It was amazing and seriously brought tears to my eyes when I looked at it. (I am a sap but photography does that to me. Really.) I plan to add more colorful images to my portfolio.

The rain did not let up so here are a few somewhat colorful images from a photo shoot of mine 3 weeks ago. This is Fisher and he deserves his own blog post which I plan to do so consider this a sneak peek.

I love my job! I can't believe this is my job!!

Next up in the blog circle is Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area. Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each post to see the other photographer's take on this week's theme.

Barkelona Day 2, Photo Shoot with Sasha

If you've read my previous posts about my day 2 photo shoots at Barkelona, you've met Taila, Pepa, Teo, Forca and now let me introduce Sasha. Sasha is a 4 month old Samoyed. After this photo session with her, I knew one of my goals when I got home was to try and find a setting similar to this so I could recreate this first photo of her with my dogs and my client's dogs.  I love the dirt path that leads to her and the canopy of trees framing her, and the sun coming through the trees above her. I believe I have found a location in Charlotte to recreate something similar this photo. Unfortunately it isn't super close to where I live (so I am on the hunt for a similar location closer) but I hope to get my dog Moose up to this location soon and once I do, I will post the photos and we can compare them. Eeeeee :)

Back to Sasha.

She was such a great model and if my memory serves me correctly, I believe I told the others in the group at the time, I knew these would be photos I would love. I'm having a difficult time editing this first one.  The setting is beautiful but it is requiring some photoshop trickery and I've not quite mastered it yet.  I'm sure I'll continue to play with this photo... I'm curious to see what I might do to it next time.  Again, if you've read my previous posts you know I was searching to create my style. These are getting closer to it, particularly the 2nd photo.

We changed locations and the lighting was gorgeous. In the next set of photos, Sasha was backlit but the setting sun. The photos I took during this time are quite different from the earlier ones of Sasha because of the lighting.  Which do you prefer?

I hope you've enjoyed these photos of Sasha.  We had one more set of dogs we photographed on day 2.  You'll meet Pruna and Boira in my next Barkelona blog post and there were a couple of photos from that session that I stood out to me too. :) Be sure to check back!

Project 52 Week 19: Patterns

This week we are continuing our study of lines and specifically patterns this week. In our workbook, this phrase in particular stood out to me: "The stronger the pattern, the stronger the expectation that the pattern will continue to repeat, and when it doesn't, that contrast has great visual mass and will captivate our attention." When I was in Spain, one of the photographers took several amazing photos of a dog standing in between some stone columns. That visual is exactly what comes to mind when I read about this exercise. I am hoping she will participate this week and use that photo (I may have hinted to her that she needs too!)  It is one of my favorite photos that anyone of us took in Spain. In our workbook for this week, one of the photos used as an example was taken in Africa on a safari. It was a landscape image with antelope and a Land Rover creating a pattern with eye being drawn to the antelope. My take on this week's assignment is similar since I couldn't find any stone columns and a dog that would hold a sit/stay for me. :(

Let me set the stage.

I was pet sitting with this cutie Millie and her canine sister Sadie. Millie was rescued as a puppy from a bad breeding situation and now 5 years later to say her life is better is an understatement. Just look at this yard AND her frequent guests that keep her (and me!) entertained.

I'd grabbed my camera before heading over to her house knowing that I was loosing light quickly. I wish I would've had my long lens but I didn't so I made do with my 24-70. I cranked up my ISO and was at f/8 to try and capture the entire scene in focus. To say Millie is a ball of energy is an understatement. If you sit down or crouch down (to take a photo), you need to know where Millie is because she will be on you in a heartbeat and loves to smother you in as many kisses as she can. She may hold the record for most kisses given in under a minute! I am not kidding!!  In low light at f/8 and a high ISO, if Millie moved at all, she wasn't going to be sharp. In the first image she isn't but I've included it because this was my first indication that something was going on....

This was mine and Millie's view last night. And yes, my view of Millie was pretty much of her hind end the entire time!

This is a blog circle so next up is Northeast PA Pet Photographer, Elaine Tweedy.  Be sure to click the link at the bottom of each post to see each photographer's interpretation on this week's assignment.