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Max has a few months left to live. Cancer. His owner asked me for a photo shoot to remember her best friend with. I did this shoot on the house. ...
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Max has a few months left to live. Cancer. His owner asked me for a photo shoot to remember her best friend with. I did this shoot on the house.
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Feb, 2016Views
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in the Edmonton river valley near the Northlands golf club. I was taking photos for a family friend because their dog Max had terminal cancer. I was honoured to capture Max and the special relationship between Max and his family. Max is a very loving dog with incredibly expressive eyes. Several weeks after this photo Max was put to rest.Time
This is my favourite image from this particular shoot. Max was running about the park with other dogs and had great energy. We started the shoot inside my friends house but once we got outside I was able to see Max's great personality and love for his owner.This image was taken on December 30, 2015 at 4:53 PM.Lighting
This is a naturally lit photo. Sunset in Edmonton comes early, around 5 pm we have about 30 minutes of light left. Shooting fast moving animals in low light required me to shoot in shutter priority with about 1/1250 s to ensure the images were sharp - man they were moving fast! It was a sacrifice between sharpness and noise however ISO 1250 gave an acceptable amount of noise while allowing a good depth of field and fast shutter speed to freeze my fast moving subjects.Equipment
This was shot close up on a Canon 5D Mk II using a rental 70-200 f2.8 II lens set to 70mm to get a wide of field of view as possible. I wanted to switch out to my 35mm lens but Max was moving so fast I didn't want to miss any opportunities so I rolled with the 70-200 for the entire shoot. The resulting photos were naturally cropped close in about the subject and turned out great.Inspiration
When I was told Max had terminal cancer I felt quite awful for my family friend. I am a dog owner myself and the thought of losing my own dogs tugs at my heart strings. I offered my friend a complementary photo shoot so she would have some excellent images of Max to remember him by. I wish I could do more. Cancer has taken many people from close friends and family as well as one immediate family member. I am happy to say that immediate family member is in the process of beating the snot of of that cancer I am happy to say. While I was taking this series of photos Max was getting close to his owner. He has some incredibly expressive eyes and you can see the incredible connection between Max and his owner in this particular photo.Editing
I edited this photo in Adobe Lightroom using minimal adjustments other than white balance and other basic adjustments. I did apply a "teeth whitening" adjustment brush to Max's teeth and eyes. I find the "teeth whitening" brush is effective in brightening eyes in order to bring focus to them.In my camera bag
I normally shoot with a pair of prime lenses because I love fast lenses and they are compact and *relatively* cheap compared to zoom lenses. I have two bodies so I do not have to switch lenses around during the shoot. I plan the shoot and put the lens which will see the most use on my primary camera body. I normally roll with a Canon 35mm f2.0 I use for street photography or when I use a wide field of view this is my favourite lens and this is normally attached to my Canon 5D Mk II which is my primary camera body. For portrait sessions I am never without my 50mm f1.4 lens which is usually on my Canon 5D camera body.Feedback
When taking photos of fast moving animals or children you need a fast shutter speed so I recommend shooting in speed priority mode at 1/800 minimum to around 1/1250, determining an acceptable ISO which will allow a workable depth of field. The best shots I got from this photo session all resulted from getting a unique perspective. Everyone has photos of dogs taken while standing at normal height from 4-10 ft away and focusing on top of the dogs head. To be interesting and different I either got in very close or stayed far away on the ground getting shots as low down as possible. Army crawl type photos. This allows a point of view most people don't often see of their pets and allows you to capture the animals personality and facial features. Being on the ground at a distance required a long range lens which I don't normally work with so I rented a 70-200 f2.8II for this photo shoot.
