Working Like a Dog

This was my favorite image from the Cute Pooch Calendar contest.

The chair in this picture is about 2 feet tall mind you. You can gauge

the size of dog and the chair based on the real apple in the image.

Yesterday was a whirlwind of a day. I had a booth at an outdoor dog fair in Cedar Park near Austin. The event was called Paws in the Park and it was organized by the Austin Dog Alliance. What is a photographer doing at an outdoor dog fair you ask. What do you think? I was taking pictures of course. I mentioned this in my August 17th blog post (you should read it if you haven't already).

The reason I was taking pictures was for content for a 2009 calendar that I was asked to help design and print for the Austin Dog Alliance. After setting up the booth, I started taking pictures of any dog that would sit still for a second or two. Each entrant's owner into the Cute Pooch Calendar contest contributed $10, $5 of which went to the Austin Dog Alliance and the other $5 covered the cost of a 4 x 6 inch print each owner received at the event before they went home.

I used my Nikon 50mm f/1.4 for the entire shoot which allowed me to keep the aperture wide open and the depth of field really shallow. I passed off my 2GB Lexar and SanDisk Compact Flash cards to an assistant who threw them into my portable Epson PictureMate printer and selected the best image from each series and printed it. We kept switching out cards when I got about 100 images on them or about 5 dogs since I was taking about 20 frames per dog. We were moving fast and furious so the 3 hours went by quickly.

One of my favorite dogs and pictures from the event was a little chihuahua (pictured above). He seemed so scared that he just sat on the little chair I brought as a prop and shook nervously. He was selected as Mr. September because of the "Back to School" theme. There were a bunch of other great shots and all the dogs were wonderful, but this little guy was probably my favorite.

If you are wondering how I diffused the sunlight, you will have to check back in future blog posts. I designed and built a giant photo booth and diffuser that I will blog about in more detail in upcoming weeks. I also plan on posting the plans for the photo booth and maybe even doing a video on how to set it up and use it, which I will post on YouTube.

Dog Days of Summer

Tyson and I had some fun the other day playing around with my new strobes.
Tyson, a miniature pinscher, is often my model when I get a new piece of gear.

This is my dog, Tyson. He is a miniature pinscher and usually ends up being my model when I need to practice photographing something. This day, he was helping me test out my new strobes. I bought two Alien Bees B-400 flash units in a package the company calls the DigiBee. They are great because they are relatively inexpensive, very light and compact, and easy to set up and use. I bought them because I am doing more studio work now to compliment my natural light work. There’s a lot of creative freedom a photographer can explore when using artificial light solely or even when combined with natural light.

Speaking of photographing dogs and combining both artificial and natural light, I have been asked to photograph several hundred dogs later this fall in Austin for the Austin Dog Alliance’s “Cute Pooch Calendar”. They plan to have plenty of costumes and props for dogs and their owners to use, but participants can also bring their own. The idea is that the Austin Dog Alliance will choose the cutest pooch for each of the twelve months of the year and feature the best picture of that dog for their respective month. They plan to sell the calendars, with all of the proceeds going back to help the programs of the Austin Dog Alliance. The great thing about the calendar is that they will contain a coupon or two each month for local pet related products and services, so the cost of the calendar is virtually nothing. What a great deal!

I will blog more about this event as details become available. If you are interested, please check back here or contact the Austin Dog Alliance for more information.