For the past 11 days, the Florida Circuit of Dog Shows have been taking place in and around Orlando Florida. Starting tomorrow, they go on for another 5 days. The first 4 shows were held in Deland, about 30 miles NorthEast of Orlando at an indoor venue. All indoor venues are a challenge because there is never enough light to take any decent action shots. Deland is even more difficult because the CarbonArc lights are synched at 60 HZ which means they pulse. You don't see it with your naked eye but you certainly see it in long runs of 6.5 fps which is how you take moving shots of dogs. Needless to say, there are some technical challenges.
The next set of shows are held outdoors in Brooksville, about 50 miles West of Orlando high on a hill where cattle normally graze
. Insert photo of dog burying nose in ground! The outdoor venue provides a lot of opportunities for getting really good action shots -- provided you can position yourself where you get a good side angle on the action. That's not always possible with inside rings, morning light and all the stuff that makes our jobs more difficult.
The Deland shows started on January 2 and our handler, Kimm McDowell drove down from Michigan to show her new Special, Caesar for those shows. Except that she blew her transmission in Tennessee. After renting a van, driving down and making it here in time to show, she needed some kind of break. And she got it: Caesar (Ch Loral's Number One Caesar) took all 4 Best of Breeds and 4 Group 1s in Deland to position himself as the #1 Rottweiler early in 2009.
We had the pleasure of having Caesar and Kimm stay with us along with 1 girl from a friend or ours, one puppy boy and Juneau, Sundance's sister who we bred. The house was full! Caesar and I immediately become good friends and beside the obvious physical and structural excellence he possesses, I realized that Caesar is a very special boy with outstanding temperament. Of course, he's a Rowdy great nephew so that could have something to do with it
. Here are a few shots from the early shows in Deland. ISO 1600 and primes -- no alternatives inside.
First is an in-ring head study of Caesar.
Next, a shot of him taking his first Group 1.
And an indoor moving shot.
As I said, indoor moving shots are difficult because you seldom can get shutter speeds above 1/250 which does not freeze all the movement, especially the legs.
Once we moved to Brooksville, there was plenty of light for some decent ring movement shots. Here's one.
As well as a beauty shot or two.
Now, in addition to trying to get some decent shots of Caesar for advertising, I was also the Bucket Bitch (not meant to be offensive -- the "person" who backs up the handler in and out of the ring) and had two puppies showing, one in Deland and the other in Brooksville. And, we had Juneau, Sundance's sister from the previous Cassidy litter, showing in Open Bitch trying to get her last two majors. Not to mention the Toy Poodles, Dobes, Danes, Standard Poodles, etc. I had been asked to shoot.
You've seen photos of the recent Cassidy litter but I'm not sure I've shared images of Juneau, Sundance's sister, from the earlier Cassidy/Sonny litter. Here's Juneau on her 2nd birthday.
BTW, did I mention that I also shot 2 Collie Specialties and 2 Great Dane Specialties over this same period? It's been a busy time here in sunny Orlando.
Jim
