I have a question; please do not take any offence, as I don’t know much about shooting formal show dogs. I've done a lot of event photography, but not of dogs.

The question is this, if the dog is the subject, and one is trying to show off the dog and its conformation -- conditioning, coat, etc. -- why is it important to show the handler in the photos? Is the purpose of the shots to market the handler and the dog? Or, is it to show the dog?

Nice use of natural light, and at noon no less! nice job.

Just curious. . . Thanks for the sincere reply.

Tony,
no offense taken! It's a perfectly logical question if you assume that in the AKC ring, judges actually judge dogs. However, life, politics, religion and dog showing don't work that way. Many judges are strongly influenced by who is on the other end of the leash.

Now, the cynical might say that's a lot of political BS. But the optimists among us would say that certain handlers are well-known for the quality of the dogs they bring to the ring and so the judge can feel fairly comfortable that if they select that handler's dog, they are picking a good representative of the breed.

That said, the handler is a key element in the advertising mix and we try to make sure that judges who read the key publications such as Dog News, The Canine Chronicle, ShowSite Magazine and others always see the combination of dog and handler in the ads. Keep in mind that most judges are not experts in all breeds (especially the all-breed judges rather than the breeder/judges) and one large black & tan dog rather looks like every other large black & tan dog. But if you know that Jeff Brucker is handling Brito, a Hungarian import, and you know that because you saw their ads in the magazines, then maybe you'll pay a little more attention to them in Breed judging.

So, that's a fairly long-winded answer to your question. I trust it satisfies your curiosity.

Jim

Dee Dee,
once the ads run, I'll be happy to share them with you.

I'm afraid there is no cure for you -- you are an equipment junkie! The Mark II, huh? Good luck. I believe in getting the best you can afford. I wish I could work with the 1DsMkII but my budget is simply not there. For me, and the way I shoot, the XT offers exceptional image quality for a remarkable price. On the other hand, if I were working outdoors exclusively in all kinds of weather, I'd have to be at the 1D level.

Shooting RAW give you the most control AFTER the shot. It bypasses the camera's processing computer and lets you work with what the sensor actually captured. And to do it over and over again without ever damaging the original file. A downside is the fact that most cameras don't handle a long burst of RAW files as fast or as long as Large/Fine jpegs. RAW files are much bigger and eat up more of the buffer. For example, I can fire off 40 frames with the XT at 3 frames/second at Large/Fine jpeg and only 7 RAW files in a similar burst.

With RAW, you have to process the files in either Adobe Camera RAW (part of PhotoShop) or one of the other independent RAW processors such as Capture One, Bibble or others. But the additional back-end processing lets you do a lot more with a lot more control of color, white balance, sharpening, contrast, shadow & highlight detail, etc.

Jim

Thanks for the insite, that's is very interesting!

Thanks Jim. I am going to play with RAW so I can see the difference first hand. It is a shame it takes up so much more card space but sounds like it might be worth it.

I'll be looking forward to seeing how you do the beagle, I'm guessing your wife will be doing this?