A moment of peace
Max is one of our family pets. After playing with Mojo - our other dog - he felt quite tired and settled down to cuddle his toy. He let me take a few shots with...
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Max is one of our family pets. After playing with Mojo - our other dog - he felt quite tired and settled down to cuddle his toy. He let me take a few shots without moving. He is a beautiful dog with an excitable and loving personality.
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Aug, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This is our dog Max (AKA: Maxwell-penny) who is a very excitable 3 year-old Dalmatian. I took this photo in my lounge room on the rug at my house in Perth, Western Australia. Max was on his bed getting ready for a sleep.Time
This photo was captured indoors during the evening so there wasn't any natural light available, but I really love the way this photo turned out.Lighting
I had the halogen down-lights on and used my on-camera flash pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle to eliminate the shadows. I used a a bounce card to give the catch lights in his eyes. I really wanted to light his face and coat because the natural contrast of his spots is lovely and easily recognised the world over.Equipment
This shot was with my hand-held Nikon D7000 and 35mm lens set to aperture priority at f1.8 for depth. I used a fixed ISO 100 with flash set to TTL which resulted in a 1/60 shutter speed. The Metz 52 AF-1 was mounted on-camera.Inspiration
This was taken after Max and our other dog Mojo (a Labrador) had a big playtime session. They were very excited and playing roughly for about a half an hour, basically running around and crashing into each other like fools (very funny). Max settled down to have a rest and I though it would be a great time to catch him relaxed and calm. I especially liked the way he was snuggling with his favourite toy, the rag-bear.Editing
I kept editing to a minimum. I often only use Raw Processing before converting to Jpeg and cropping. For this photo I simply increased contrast (+100), shadows (+65), clarity (+13) and converted to B+W by dropping the saturation (-100). About 30 seconds of processing time and the same again for conversion. I cropped this shot to a 16 x 9 aspect so I could load it onto my desktop at work.In my camera bag
I don't have a lot of gear, but what I do have I get the most out of it. I always carry my Nikon D7000 (my only camera), fitted with one of my two lenses; a Nikon DX AF-S NIKKOR 35mm 1:1.8G, and a Nikon DX AF-S NIKKOR 18-105mm 1:3.5-5.6G ED kit lens. I use the Metz 52 AF-1 digital flash if I need it, but never direct it front-on. For tripods, I find the GorillaPod Focus to be excellent - it straps neatly to my PackSafe camsafe Z15 shoulder bag, and my other larger (cheap) tripod spends most of it's days in the office. I also have a Lowepro sling backpack which has only just taken a break with the introduction of the new shoulder bag, but both are excellent for my needs and uses.The rest of my kit is just cleaning and cables not too worthy of a mention.Feedback
For relaxed pet photos like this, a good burst of exercise will do the trick just before the session. Wait until they're comfortable and then get settled on your belly. Spend some quite time with your dog. When the eyes become droopy bring out the camera. They'll watch you and the camera inquisitively but won't be too alert to be bothered to move. This will give you about 5 minutes before they nod-off for you to get the shots you need. I had my camera almost on the ground for this shot as I needed to be looking straight into his eyes. I used full illumination to show the contrast of his spots. And finally, his toy rag-bear illustrates the story of a sleepy dog after playtime. The toy completes the shot and sets it apart from the other photos we have of our boys.
