Quote:

Hi Moshe,

Welcome aboard. I am going to address two different things in this post.

The first is about embedding images. I tried - several times - to figure out a way to embed your images into a post. For whatever reason, photo.net does not seem to allow it to happen. Typically images are posted in this fashion:

(Make sure you add the front bracket...I did this only so that the wording would show).

image]http://www.YourWebDomain.com/path/FileName.jpg[/image]

Do you have hosting through photo.net? Or are these just images embedded in an already existing post?

James:

Thanks for your reply.

I'm somewhat relieved to know that someone who has a lot more experience than me wasn't able to embed the photo.net images--although I'm disappointed that apparently it can't be done. I do, in fact, have hosting on photo.net.

Part II:

About backgrounds - you are right...this is extremely difficult to do. 90% of my work that I do in pet photography is done 'on location.' I prefer the control of lights and backgrounds because of this.

I do very little in parks or other open places. I agree that Julie's use of crop is a very valuable tool. The difficulty is when you want to blow up images to large sizes.

I'm glad you point out this problem. Since a lot of my pics are "grab-shots," virtually never with a tripod, I'm often reluctant to crop for exactly the reason you mention.

I think that the other alternative is to use lenses with long reach. The idea being that if you cannot always crop later to do it in advance. Specifically, I am talking about reducing the elements in a scene that you are photographing.

On my photography wish list is a 75-200, but it's probably not in the cards for quite some time.

If you are doing work with people, and they are aware that you are doing photographic work, then getting them to pose with you a bit is also helpful. In this case, using buildings or other such materials as backdrops may be valuable.

Absolutely. I realized after posting this request for suggestions that, more often than not, what I need is not technical camera advice but the benefit of how more experienced photogs handle the "relationship" challenges of directing their subjects. That part of the process seems to be coming to me VERY slowly.

Cheers
James


Moshe