Paws in the Park 2016

The photos from yesterday's event, Paws in the Park are online.  You can view them at http://seespotruncharlotte.shootproof.com/gallery/pawsinthepark2016/.   I would love (LOVE) your feedback on the images.  Shooting pictures outside at an all day event like this can be a challenge.  Yesterday was no exception.  Around 10am, we were in total cloud cover, then the sun came out, so the rest of the day the sun was going in and out of the clouds.  Conditions like that are tricky to photograph in because the camera settings have to be changed each time your light source changes (which was all the time yesterday!) Another challenge photographing at events like this is trying to keep the leash out of the way as much as possible.  You can see in the gallery, for any super duper well trained dogs that could be off leash, I generally took a lot of pictures of them.

Towards the end of the day, a guy (the 4-legged kind) walked up.  His name was Buddy and I immediately fell in love.  Things had slowed down as it was close to quitting time so I was able to spend some time with him.  You see, See Spot Run Photography was founded because of my black lab Buddy.  We adopted Buddy from Lab Rescue of NC on 12/31/08 and we were told that he was between 7-10 years old.  Not long after we got him, I told my husband, 'however long we get to have Buddy, it will not be long enough.'  We were lucky to have him for 6 years but it wasn't long enough.  As Buddy's health was failing in the summer of 2014, I decided to buy my first professional camera so I could capture a nice image of him.  One that I could look at and be thankful to have.  If you stopped by my booth and saw the black & white photo of the black lab, that is Buddy (pictured above.)  My heart dog.  He died about 5 weeks after I got the camera and I am so glad I have this image of him.

So, when this big guy named Buddy came walking over to me, I knew I had to capture some images of him too.

  I had such fun at Paws in the Park.  If you would like professional images taken of your pet, please contact me.  My Buddy helped me find my passion back on that August day in 2014, when I walked into that camera shop.  Thank you Buddy.  I am forever grateful because there is nothing that I love doing more than photographing a dog.

Project 52 - Week 13: Use Focus to Abstract

Our challenge this week is to 'use focus to abstract.'  As a photographer and a new photographer at that, trying to use a 'lack of focus' to create an image seems foreign to me, uncomfortable even.  I would imagine as I gain more experience I will become more comfortable with this idea but right now it isn't comfortable for me at all.  I think this concept is particularly difficult when dealing with dogs or perhaps I am just not extremely creative (and that could be it too!)  I can't wait to see what the others do with this assignment and perhaps I'll get some inspiration from them. Our instructions were to spend a day getting over our need for sharp focus.  I can without a doubt say I've spent every moment behind the camera trying to capture sharp focus.  TACK.  SHARP.  FOCUS.

We were instructed to create a body of art and post several images.  Here is the reason why I'm not doing that: As a new photographer, I am trying to attract new customers.  If a potential new client were to scroll through images on my blog and see a post of extremely blurry photos without reading the intention of the exercise, they would certainly get the wrong message.  I'm afraid my attempts at using focus to abstract didn't result in images I loved.  So, while I really appreciate the intention of this exercise and I love doing these each week, below is the one photo I'm posting.

I used curves in photoshop to draw your eye even more to my dog Willow's tongue.  (Let me tell you, that was trial and error.  I don't really get 'curves.')  With curves I was able to blur the majority of her white fur so you loose the outline of the top of her head but her eyes and pink tongue are still distinguishable.

And yay to Willow for being my model this week.  She is 10 years old, 11 in May and she has always been afraid of certain sounds.  The sound of a train is her biggest fear which took us awhile to figure out when we adopted her 4 years ago.  Over the past year, she has developed a dislike for the clicking sound my camera makes so she isn't my model very often.  (Even with the beep turned off when the camera focuses, she still doesn't like the clicking of the shutter release.)  Such a shame too because she has beautiful eyes.

I seriously can't wait to see what Northeast PA pet photographer, I Got The Shot Photography  does with this assignment.  Be sure to click the link to find out and then click the link at the bottom of each post to see what each photographer does!

Moose and his tennis ball

Over this Easter weekend, I've had the chance to do something I love to do in my spare time: watch Moose play with a tennis ball.  There's not much better in this world in my opinion than watching a dog play and run around.  It's that look on their face and in their eyes.  I can just tell how happy Moose is in the images and that makes me happy. I love his long ears.  The first image catches his right ear with a little flip and the 2nd they are flapping as he is running towards me.   In the 3rd photo, he has a tennis ball in his mouth and then another tennis ball is tossed in his direction.  I'd LOVE to know what he was thinking when he saw the blue tennis ball.  I wish the next couple of photos after that one had turned out - he was trying to put on the brakes and stop for the blue tennis ball but his 90lbs of momentum wasn't able to stop on a dime.  As you can tell also, he was coming my direction so I'm sure the reason the photos didn't turn out was because I moved to get out of his way.  I did not want to be run over by a Moose!  I love this dog and his playful, curious temperament.

I love this boy!

Project 52 - week 12 - Deeper Focus

In week 12 of the Project 52 challenge, we are working on creating images with a deeper focus.  In other words, we want all of the image to be sharp, not just the subject or part of the subject.  The assignment said to adjust the aperture to f/10 which I did.  I was trying to keep my ISO as low as possible so the photo wouldn't be so noisy (grainy) which meant that my shutter speed was pretty low.  And what that means is if anything I'm trying to photograph moves, it won't be sharp. I should've adjusted to f/8.  You see, I know this brown dog very well.  This is my guy Moose and to get this photo, I had 2 photography assistants helping me.  He's a great dog but not the easiest to photograph.  His name is Moose and his name fits!  He's a bit of a goofball - high energy and food motivated with a pretty strong prey drive.  He will 'sit' on command but he's not so good at 'stay.' :(

Here is the (long) back story:  Tuesday I'd posted on our facebook page that I was having a problem finding a location to use that had a pretty enough background to keep sharp.  Many times I am in an area where I prefer to blur the background because it is cluttered but this week I'm supposed to keep the entire photo sharp.  I had envisioned going to a Freedom Park which is really pretty (see below.) There I would have a really pleasing background.  However my assistant(s) and I couldn't get our schedules coordinated to make that work.

In trying to come up with plan B, I thought about the blooming bushes in my own front yard.  If I could get Moose in front of them, it'd make for a nice photo.  So Wednesday morning, I had Moose outside when the neighborhood kids (who are my two best assistants) were waiting for their school bus and I asked them to help me.  We had a window of about 15 minutes before the bus would come to try and get a photo that would work.

And this one does, sort of.  All of Moose (and there is a lot of him at 90lbs) is in focus, albeit not as sharp as I would like but the bushes behind him aren't.  If he wasn't sitting so close to the pink bushes, they'd be more in focus but this is where he finally sat down so I snapped away.   Trying to move him forward and getting him to sit again would've been a challenge.  With Moose, you take what you can get!

So, in this photo, Gracyn is standing with the leash camera right.  Kelly is standing near me with treats in her hand.  I'm about 20 yards away from Moose.    Caption this photo: What does the look on Moose's face say?

He's a funny dog - he is either crashed on the couch or he is going ninety to nothing.  My husband says he's a great dog 90% of the time and by that, I think he means when he is sleeping because the dog loves to sleep!

When he is outside and especially when there are treats around, he's pretty excited.  That's why I should've known better than to try and take a photo with these settings.  He wasn't very still and I'm disappointed that this image isn't tack sharp.  Perhaps camera shake is at fault too.  If there is another photo posted of Moose below with deeper focus, you will know I roped the girls into helping me Thursday morning before school too!  They're such good sports.

I did get this photo of some Canadian geese earlier in the week.  It's at f/8 and has the deeper focus the assignment required and below that are photos of Freedom Park from last fall.  Next up in the blog circle is Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati and the San Francisco Bay Area.  Be sure to keep clicking the links at the bottom of each post to see each photographer's take on the Project 52 assignment - creating photos with a deeper focus.

Isolation: Use a Wider Aperture - Project 52 - week 11

It is week 11 in the project 52 challenge and we are to 'isolate our subject using a wider aperture.  Using a wide aperture means we are supposed to use a small f/stop number such as f/1.8.   The assignment's goal was to help us get a better sense for the difference between shallow focus, deep focus and the middle ground also known as depth of field (DoF).  DoF is something I really struggled to understand but over the past month or so, I've gotten a better handle on it.  I thought the aperture was the only thing that affected the DoF but just as our book states, camera to subject distance matters when it comes to DoF.  I worked on this several weeks ago so where I normally feel like I'm trying these exercises from a kindergartner's perspective, this week I may have progressed to elementary school level.  Woo hoo! If you like to study the detail in a photo, these images will give you a chance to do that.  Can you immediately see a difference in these first two photos?  If you'd asked me that a year or so ago, I probably would've said no, I don't see much that is really different.  Now though, I do see some differences.  More of her face is sharper in the top image and the only adjustment I made on the camera was the aperture.  The top photo is at f/8 and the 2nd one is at f/16.

I am really close to Lucca in both of these photos.  To be this close to her and to get a super sharp image, I should have increased my ISO.  With my ISO at 640 and an aperture of f/16, my shutter speed was too low to at 1/6 to handhold the camera for this shot.  I would've needed my tripod to get the shot sharp at an aperture of f/16.  Her right eye is pretty sharp and that's where I had my focus point but the rest of her face isn't tack sharp.

For this last photo, I used the widest aperture on my lens, f/1.8 and in this case I am isolating her eyes.  When the camera is as close to the subject as I was at f/1.8, you will have an extremely shallow DoF (and by shallow I mean just mere inches.)  Here Lucca's right eye is sharp but her nose and the fur around it aren't.  That is what using a shallow DoF and being really close to your subject will do.  I could've put the focus point on her nose to make it sharp which may have been funny but her eyes wouldn't have been sharp.  A sharp DoF can be just a few inches and in this case, it was.

Knowing all of the above is just one element of photography that makes it so complicated.  Soooo complicated BUT fun!!

Thanks to my lovely model Lucca.  We'd been out for our walk, she'd followed a bunny scent around her yard and then she decided to chill on her deck.

Go to Beyond the Fence Dog Adventure Photography's page to read her take on this week's assignment.

Black Dog Appreciation Day - April 2, 2016

Paws in the Park, an event in coordination with Black Dog Appreciation Day and Dog Walk will be held on Saturday April 2, 2016 at Pineville Lake Park (1000 Johnston Drive Pineville NC 28134) from 10am - 2pm. This is a free, kid friendly, and furry-kid friendly event. At 12pm, there will be a dog walk around the lake. Dogs of any color can attend!

This event was started a few years ago to help bring awareness to Black Dog Syndrome. Black dogs in shelters are typically the last dogs to find homes and the first ones to be euthanized. By walking dogs together and promoting the black dogs in need of forever homes, we can spread awareness about Black Dog Syndrome and begin to change the odds for homeless black dogs. I thank Lab Rescue of NC from the bottom of my heart for rescuing Buddy (pictured here), a black labrador on Oct 27, 2008.

In December 2008, I lost my first labrador retreiver Sloan (she was chocolate) to cancer. Two weeks later on New Years Eve, we brought home Buddy, my first black dog. He was my heart dog: that once in a lifetime (twice if you're lucky) dog. We were told by Lab Rescue of NC that Buddy was anywhere from 7-10 years old when we got him. I told my husband as soon as we got him that however long we would have him, it would not be long enough. He lived with us for almost 6 years and that wasn't long enough but I cherish every minute I had with him. My Buddy aka The Budster.

One of my biggest regrets is not having great pictures of Sloan. I have a ton of pictures of her but none that are really good. In the summer of 2014, we knew that Buddy's health was deteriorating and I had been considering buying a 'real' camera so I did. I had the camera for 6 weeks before we lost Buddy. The image above is one I took of Buddy and I can't tell you how much comfort I get from looking at this gray face.

Because of Buddy, Black Dog Appreciation Day means a lot to me. I will be there in his memory.

Why does Black Dog Syndrome exist? Black dogs are typically the last to be adopted because they are hard to photograph. In most shelters the lighting is poor and it is hard to make out facial expressions so the images are generally poor.  We are so fortunate to have professional photographer Fred Levy, Author of The Black Dogs Project attending Paws in the Park and he is also putting on a seminar on 3/31/16. Here are the details for the seminar (which I'm attending of course!):

Learn how to photograph Black Dogs from Fred Levy, Author of The Black Dogs Project. Thursday March 31, 2016 South Charlotte Banquet Center 9009 Bryant Farms Rd, Charlotte, North Carolina 28277 7pm - 9pm. Doors open at 5pm. Admission is $10 (cash) at the door or in advance at charlotteblackdogs@gmail.com

***Sorry, no dogs allowed at this***

Please come out and support See Spot Run Photography at Paws in the Park and drop by my booth to say hello. I'll be taking photos of the dogs attending and I'll post them at seespotruncharlotte.shootproof.com after the event.