Should we call Wednesday Dogsterday?

Dogs always seem to know where the good light is on a lazy weekend.  The first two photos were not staged, rather I caught these two dogs when the light was right and I grabbed my camera.  Here are a few quick shots I took and figured I'd share.  Who doesn't like a few dog photos to brighten their day, right?

Cody

Cody is a friend's dog and he sure loves food.  He will stare for hours at you until he gets a nibble.  He also apparently likes baseball.  Shot with my Nikon D90 and 35mm lens.  The curtains reflected the light like a huge light box.  This room was a little smaller and more light reflected on his face from the walls than the next photo.  I didn't have to do much editing in Lightroom.

Cody - Circa 2014

Charlotte

I took this photo in December 2013 of Charlotte who is again another friend's dog.  She is a Pitbull mix and really likes licking people and hiking.  I took this when the sun was really low in the evening but the window shades were open.  This created more of a silhouette as the light was more harsh.  I didn't want to use a flash to fill in her right side as it had taken maybe 10 minutes just to get her to stay still.  I was able to correct some of the shadows in Lightroom.  All in all, I like her pose and the bokeh effect of the floral couch. 

Charlotte - Circa 2013

One for the funny pages

Cookie

I snapped this photo of Cookie with an old Casio EX-Z1000 in 2007.  I walked Cookie to a street near my house that was filled with lots of graffiti art.  Let's just say I got a few stares trying to make a Yorkshire Terrier that is about 7 lbs. look tough on the streets of San Francisco.  In the end, I thought the two of us pulled off the look we were going for.  Lol. 

Cookie - Circa 2007

Why are Fire Hydrants Purple or Lime?

This is a throwback story that I posted when submitting for a weekend photo theme for froknowsphoto.com back in February 2012.  I heard the theme was "fire hydrant(s)" while driving and listening to the froknows podcast and used the only camera I had with me at the time.

I had recently moved to Pleasanton, CA and realized I had not even seen any fire hydrants.  The hydrants didn't stand out as they do with other cities.  The hydrants were not your typical red color.    The funny thing is that I did notice the town across the freeway, Dublin, CA had purple hydrants.  I always found Dublin's color choice as odd since the city typically has a green theme.  

As I was driving to the store I spotted a green/lime hydrant near the Pleasanton downtown area!  This was not a planned shoot, so I only had my iPhone, not my Nikon D90.  Well, this theme turned quickly into a photo challenge.  

I quickly parked and tried my best to grab some interesting shots with my iPhone 4. Needless to say, I had to spend a bit of time in post to crop, and play with saturation and blacks. I attempted a diptych since I didn't believe either image stood strong on its own.  

Below you'll find two versions I did, one in black and white and the other in color.  I removed the color in the black and white since the photo was so blown out by the intensity of the sun.

Do you know why a city would use such creative color choices for their fire hydrants?

Click to see larger version

Click to see larger version

Tips for Your First Studio and Model Shoot

35 mm 1/160 second f/10.0 iso 200

This post includes two of my final edits after my first time shooting a professional model and shooting within a studio.  The experience was extremely different than shooting friends, family, street photography and landscapes. I've included a short list of key items I learned through this experience.

I started by finding a meetup within San Francisco which holds regular group photo shoots.  The meetup group was used to having newbies and helped offer tips or suggestions which was really welcoming.  The lighting was already configured into position and I also was able to borrow a PocketWizard radio to trigger the softboxes.

The model named Alexis came out to greet us and then in a flurry about 10 photographers started shooting all at once.  It was very frantic providing no way to connect with the model or get her attention.  After about 10 minutes, the photographers backed-off a little taking time for changing out lenses, talking with one another, etc. and I was able to capture a few of these images.  Our model helped run through a bunch of poses, which I will admit made it easy to walk around and look for good angles.

I found the most difficult time, was trying to dial in the appropriate settings on my camera while in manual mode.  I was trying to master using triggered flashes for the first time, worrying about white balance, composition and taking tack sharp photos all at the same time.  Note, the grey background which was actually white.  I actually like the grey background but had wished I had studied tips on getting white backgrounds prior to the shoot.  This quickly became a case of learning too many things at once.  Luckily, part of my interest in photography is learning and problem solving.  Below is the list of key items I learned through this experience.  I hope this can help you in your adventures in photography.   

Key items I learned during the experience

1. Take your time, slow down and wait for good eye contact
2. Be vocal, help direct the model to get the shot you are looking for
3. Find some friendly photographers, ask questions and discuss how to execute on ideas
4. Study, practice what you learn, repeat

35 mm 1/160 second f/22.0 iso 200

In a future post, I will post the out-of-camera RAW files within this post.  I really appreciate when photographers show their RAW vs. post production work.

Do you have any critiques on the photos or suggestions you may have for studio and model shoots?  Please feel free to leave comments below.