A couple of weeks ago, Linda and I drove from Orlando to St. Charles, IL to shoot the Medallion Rottweiler Club's two Specialties. The MRC shows have always been special as one of the "big three" of Rottweiler Specialties along with the Colonial Club Specialty in PA and the American Rottweiler Club National Specialty. I've shot 8 Rottie Nationals but have never been able to get the contract for MRC although we've attended whenever we could. So this year was special.

Linda designed the logo and the photo set and I used a simple lighting setup with one Alien Bee just off-center, a 61-inch soft silver PLM and a Vagabond Mini-Lithium. There were two days and 2 shows and we dragged our 13-month boy, Scamp, along to embarrass us. He did his job quite well .

Here is the winner of Best Of Breed on day one of the shows: GCH Hemlock's Jack Of Hearts RA (Trapper).



The winner of Best Of Breed on day two was a lovely bitch that I've had the pleasure of photographing several times: GCH Gamegards Rhythm Of The Rain (Cadey).



One of the joys of being at MRC was meeting up with one of our long-time puppy owners with her girl, Stella. Stella is out of our second Annie/Rueger litter and she will be 12 years old in February. She is healthy, happy and we enjoyed being able to hold her in our arms all 4 days we were there. Here's an environmental portrait of Stella aka UUD UACHX Annihaus' Stolen From the Mob UDX RN HT HSAs MX MXJ AXP MJP NF JHD TDI VX (AKC versatility excellent).



The woman who owns Stella also owns Scampy's sister, Diva, and Diva also showed at MRC. Both kids really did a good job of showing -- Diva much more so than Scampy -- so I took this photo of them with their handler and co-breeder, Kimm McDowell.



While the trip was long and the work hard, it was wonderful to catch up with old friends, to see dogs showing in Veterans that I shot when they were puppies (and have them run up to me for hugs and kisses) and to have an opportunity to do some good work in my own breed. I've already been hired to shoot the shows again next year. And I'm looking forward to it. Now, to get Scampy trained so he won't embarrass us again .

Jim