Bird Dog
Photo of Springer Spaniel with Pheasant
Photo of Springer Spaniel with Pheasant
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Nov, 2013Views
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Awards
Legendary Award
Staff Winter Selection 2015
Outstanding
Superb Composition
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Peer Award
Magnificent Capture
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Behind The Lens
Location
The dog was photographed in the owner's back garden. As most of my work is digitally manipulated, location really doesn't matter too much. It's the light that's important to me as the direction of light on the subject has to match the light on the background to make it convincing. The background shot was taken on the edge of some farm land. I liked it because the bright frosty conditions added a delicate texture to the foliage.Time
Time of day was mid morning on a bright crisp winter's day.Lighting
I look for the type of lighting that will "model" the subject and hopefully make it stand out from the background.Equipment
I used my Canon 450D. No flash, no tripodInspiration
I love to shoot animal portraits but not having studio facilities I use Photoshop to "manufacture" the finished look. As working a gun dog is a country pursuit I thought that a rural background of natural foliage would set it off very well.Editing
The post processing in this image was relatively simple. Just the subject and background. If I remember correctly I had to flip the background horizontally so that the direction of light matched that of the dog. I used a simple colour gradient layer on top of everything to blend to colours of the two layers.In my camera bag
I don't use a lot of equipment and would normally only carry my camera with standard lens and a 300mm zoom lens. I always carry my Speedlight 550EX flash. I take a polarizing filter and a neutral density filter. A beanbag for long exposure shots comes in handy at timesFeedback
The thing that makes or breaks a composite image can be the lighting. Take plenty time to scrutinize your background images and pick one with the best match in lighting and with a composition that doesn't compete too much with the subject. Try to find the "story" within the image. In this image the dog is holding a pheasant in his mouth. Being a wild bird, I tried to convey this by creating a background from the kind of ground cover in which the bird might have been hiding before the shooting party and beaters arrived.
