I did my first horse photos; well first domestic horse. The whites are a little hot but otherwise I like the photo.

Hey visceral, are you using a sigma or sigma lens?

Tony;

Nope, I did own a Sigma 300-800 but sold it a month ago; all my other equipment is Nikon

Not my favorites but so far some of my toughest. When we arrived to do the shoot tonight the first thing I asked is, do they sit when you tell them and the owner laughed and said, nope. The first shot is the 2 eldest that he wanted a formal portrait of them with just the 2 of them. The second is a sample of a family portrait. These guys were cute but man were they tough. Again these are samples and I need to do some editing and have a ton more shots but thought I would put some up. I will be heading to bed soon! I need a rest!

Bob,
nice job. You can tell these were not easy -- only one set of "ears" in the group shot which I assume is a collage.

I'm beginning to think that when folks want "group" formals, I'll let the dogs run around together outside and take candids and then put it together into a collage afterwards. You miss the lighting control but you get so much more personality of the dogs and they tend to be more relaxed. Assuming they can be run together .

I'm kinda thinking out loud on this since I have a group shot scheduled for next week and the owners says the dogs have no training whatsoever. Sigh. More Valium.

The overall lighting on these is great. You did a good job with tough subjects.

Jim

Bob,
thought I'd share one more of my puppy portraits taken the other day. One family took two of the pups and is now driving them back to New Hampshire. They asked for a "formal" portrait even though they got a bunch of candids in my puppy portfolio. So, into the studio we went with two puppies, two assistants (Linda and her sister RoseAnn) and lots of noisy toys.

Amazingly, I got several I could use without having to piece the dogs together individually. Instead of superglue to hold them in place, I had Linda and RoseAnn hold them under the backdrop material.

Here are Bella and Brody Brown. Say that fast 5 times!



Jim

Nice shot Jim. They are adorable.

Thanks for the comments. Believe it or not the shot of the 4 is a single shot. The ears were a problem through the entire shoot because the owner was really working them hard to get them to pose. I continually tried to "calm things down" so the little ones could relax but to no avail. My wife Terrie was also trying hard to preoccupy the owner but again, he was pretty darn persistent. I did have to set up some bees as the house was very very dark and what few windows there were didn't help as it was storming outside and dark!
So lights, strangers, storms, anxious owner, day at the groomer, and everything else made this one a real challenge. By the way, the shot with the 2 eldest is a merge of 2 shots. Don't tell anyone!

Quote:

---

Don't tell anyone!

---

Uh, Bob, you just did .

I don't know how many people don't realize the environmental issues with getting pets to pose. I have a lot of fairly noisy dogs in this house and cats are not all that comfortable here so I always shoot them at their homes. I actually prefer that with dogs as well but some homes just aren't set up so I can put up the Bees, backdrop and props.

We have the afternoon thunderstorm issue here as well and I try never to shoot when that's going on. Clearly, the dogs looked stressed out in the photos so I sympathize with your having to deal with an overzealous owner. I try to let the owner help with the setup but not with baiting but some think they can do a better job.

BTW, we're down to one pup -- he goes to his new home tonight. I'll take some shots of him in a few minutes. It's amazing how easy it is to take care of one puppy! He sleeps in a crate by my bed. Goes out at 5 am to tinkle. Gets me up at 6:30 (along with Sundance lifting the pillow with his nose) to go out for major potty and then plays for an hour or so. He's pretty close to potty-trained already. Lucky buyers!

After this weekend, I think a full night's sleep is in order.

Take care,

Jim