Interesting discussion! Jim, I saw your Afghan BIS shot in Canine Chronicle in the last month or so. Nice shot!
In regards to camera snobs, I have run in to them as well. One of the common misconceptions that irritates the heck out of me is when people ask what type of camera I have and when I tell them, they remark that they are going to go buy one so that they can take good photos as well. Ah well, relegated to a glorified button pusher yet again ;-)
Awhile back there was an interesting thread on the UKC discussion forum regarding proper dog show photography "etiquette." Nothing earth shattering but it gave me a little more insight into the amount of respect (or lack thereof) that show photographers are shown:
http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80429When I head to dog shows, particularly big clusters, I will take my camera and take candids as well as ring shots. The majority of the time I am working on honing my skills and do not even know any of the dogs entered. For example, last month I headed to Denver for their big cluster and spent the afternoon shooting the GSD ring. Took the shots for practice *and* I watched the judge who would be judging my breed the next day (paid off - got a 3 point major!) ;-)
However, I always respect the show photographer. Below is a photo I shot this weekend where a group of us train. Lighting is not great and the setter sort of blends into the background. I need to do some post processing to fix that and the sharpness but all in all I am pleased with it as an "off the cuff" shot.
Ingrid
