The Dog Park (Janesville WI)

I cannot believe it has been almost 6 months since I last posted.  That's what traveling for work does to a person.  Life and time seems to just disappear.  But, the future is bright and things are changing.  Definitely for the colder anyway!  There has definitely been some picture taking over the past 6 months just not nearly as much as I would have liked.  There is also a new camera and a new lens which I am very excited about.  My new Canon 7D is just fantastic.  I finally pulled the trigger on it just before I took a trip to Mexico City.  The new Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM telephoto lens is sitting right next to the 7D in all its glory.  I also took the lense to Mexico City and am really enjoying it.  The number of hits I am getting from the two together is quite incredible.  Although very heavy the image stabilization enables me to take wonderful pictures in much lower light.  A beauty to use.

Anway, enough about that, let's look at some photos.  The latest shots I have are from a walk in the woods with my father-in-law.  He always takes his dog Maggie to the dog park and I decided to tag along with our beast Vaughn, and my camera.  The first picture is of a big guy that lost an eye in a fight.  He was more interested in rummaging around smelling than in anything else.  He looks quite mean but was as lovely as could be.

The next one is an absolute darling.  Very photogenic.  I almost couldn't go wrong with this guy.  Very rambunctious though so he was all over the place and difficult to get a clean crisp shot.  I took about 50 shots of him and I think this is the only one where he was looking even remotely at the camera.

I feel like the colors on this guy were great and his bandana made for some great imagery.  He had a sparkle in his eye the whole time and was always showing a great face for a picture.  The next guy makes me a bit perplexed.  I am having trouble getting the eyes to pop.  I usually find that the dog looking directly at the camera makes for excellent pictures.  But, the following shot I think gives an example of a guy who although he is looking directly at the camera has trouble showing his eyes. 

They are simply little lumps of black in the image.  It is obviously even worse where the dogs are black.  Does anybody know how to compensate for that?  Or at least know how best to position the dog so that their eyes can be better seen.  An help on this would be greatly appreciated.

All Irish

Whilst in Ireland we were out shopping and found this tied up beauty with as much character as a dog in Ireland (or anywhere else for that matter) is going to have.  It is always easy to take photographs of something that has as much to look at as a guy like this.

His hair was all matted.  He was probably more than due for a hair cut.  But he had the most incredible personality and only wanted love and attention.  We never got to meet his master but the master was a lucky person.

Back From Ireland

I just got back from Ireland a couple of weeks ago and have a few pictures which I thought were kinda cool.  I really wasn't expecting to get much doggie action while I was over in the UK but there were a couple of times when I was really lucky and got some good shots.

We stayed in Dingle peninsula which is a small piece of land in the far south-west of the country.  It really is very beautiful and I would recommend anybody to go visit.  We went in the shoulder of the tourist season so were lucky to not have to deal with as many tourists.  But, the downside is that the weather is a little unpredictable which is definitely was for the week we were there.  We stayed in a house by the sea which had farm land and many sheep all around it.  What does this mean?  Border collies of course.  We saw many of them plying their trade and going about their business looking after sheep and cows.  We met a farmer on the road a couple of times who had 4 of them and on one occasion I was able to get a couple of shots off.

This first one is of the two dogs in the back of the truck.  I was aiming for an almost environmental portrait style where the items in the back of the truck played as much a part of the shot as the animals themselves.  They had just finished working for the day and were hanging out.

One of the border collies was quite shy and insisted on lying underneath the truck.  It's eyes were white as it stared at us wondering what we were doing chatting with the farmer.  I had to get down and crawl a bit (which everybody, including the farmer, thought was quite amusing) but I think it came out pretty well.

One of the reasons I love these shots is because the dogs are not combed well or taken care of particularly.  They are working dogs.  They live out in the garden come rain or shine.  They are feed and watered well but other than that they are considered a worker just like the rest of the men on the farm.  I think this shows a bit in the color and texture of the fur.

Not Quite Professional

It's official. I found out I have just sold my first photo.  I won't quite call myself a professional yet.  Maybe when I quit my job because I am making oodles of cash from my photo's I'll think about doing that.  I wish the photo was dog related since that is what I have been focusing on but I'll take what I can get.  Here is the photo for anyone who is interested.

I do like this picture because it makes Chicago feel like a vibrant and active city.  I even planned for the woman coming past.  It wasn't luck....promise.

Montrose Dog Beach II

The weather has been so good in Chicago these past few days that I had time to head down to the beach for round number two. Have to take advantage of it right?  Especially when you just quit your job and have the whole day at your disposal.  After running for about a mile, trying to get the dog at least a little exercise we headed on to the beach.  I would really like to say that Vaughn takes full advantage of the beach but he absolutely does not.  He immediately headed for the water, dipped his toes in and then proceeded to not leave my side the entire time I was taking photographs.  Dare I say that this does not bode well for if kids come along!!  With that said I have decided that Vaughn does not make a very good beach photography dog.  No matter, he does well lying on the couch and there are plenty of other dogs at the beach which are more than happy to take his place.  From a photography perspective this time there was a fair bit of light that allowed me to really up the shutter speed quite dramatically without having to reduce the aperture or raise the ISO which was great.  It's so much easier when you have that much flexibility.

This first photo does not have a super fast shutter speed but adequately does the job of keeping things crisp and clear.  Crisp and clear is my new mantra.  I think I'll create another post soon on why I am trying to take clarity to the next level.  Anyway, I like this one because of the dogs intent.  He seems focused on just one thing and nothing is going to stop him.

 I have also been getting some interesting shots of the dogs while they are shaking out after getting back from retrieving things.  What I love about these shots is that they show things that a person just does not see with the naked eye.  With this shot below I like the way the water is being sprayed out.  I also love being able to see his one eyelash sticking out like it is.  Maybe its not visible on the blog but zooming in on it shows the eyelash quite clearly.

Montrose Dog Beach

I have lived in Chicago for almost a year and had never gone to the Montrose dog beach until Friday.  The weather was not the greatest but it wasn't that bad either.  The wind was up a little but not enough that it was chilly.  The waves were lapping gently and the sun was out but nicely diffused by some very welcome clouds.  Unfortunately, the wind meant that getting shots of Vaughn was almost impossible.  He gets this weird wind blown effect which does not look very attractive at all.  Maybe on another day.  But, I managed to get some pretty decent ones of other pooches having a great time frolicking around on the beach.

Montrose dog beach is really awesome.  The beach itself must be 400 yards long that the dogs can use and the way it is setup is perfect.  There is a high wall on one side which tapers in towards the lake which the dogs cannot get over.  The other side has a fence, although the fence is broken and the dogs could theoretically get through.  But they don't bother since there is so much space and they want to hang out with the other dogs anyway.

Making the best of a bad situation.....and loving it!!

Unfortunately I never got this little guys name but he was having a whale of a time wheeling around the beach.  He had no trouble walking up to other much bigger pooches and letting him know that this was his beach!  

At the Dog Park

Yesterday was a great day.  The sun was shining but the clouds were out so the light was being diffused nicely.  When walking the dog I decided to take the camera and see what I could get.  I took the zoom lens as there would be dogs running around everywhere and I wanted to get some closer shots rather than a landscape with a dog somewhere in the middle!!

Fortunately there were tons of dogs around and I got some ok shots.  I am finding out just how hard it is to get these little beasties into a situation where the shot looks good.  I find that the shots are usually better when the dog is looking right at the camera.  My collie Vaughn hardly ever looks at the camera so its really hard to get some interesting shots of him.

Jazz

But, I did get some great shots of other dogs.  This is Jazz.  His owners say he notices when cameras are on him and loves to perk up and enjoy the attention.  I like this shot because he's looking right at the camera, tail is perky, ears are perky and he stands out in the grass.  Unfortunately at the dog park all the dogs have their collars on which is a shame as it takes a little away from the picture.  Jazz doesn't seem to mind about all that stuff too much and is ready for someone to chase him and his ball!!

Just For Fun

We went to Indiana for the weekend and stayed at a cute bed and breakfast which allowed dogs.  It's really tough finding places that the dog can stay at.  The place is called Tryon Farm Guest House.  It's in a really interesting community that is focused on sustainability and having minimal impact to the environment.  In the area there is the Indiana Dunes National Park which has a bunch of really great beaches.  On the Saturday it was very windy and so we were not able to head down to the beach.  But, Vaughn was able to get a great run on the Sunday.  He loves the beach as do most dogs I am sure.  He also loves sticking his head out the window and watching the world go by!!

Vaughn looking out the back window

A Good Lesson

I am busy reading a couple of excellent photography books which I would really recommend any amateur photographer take a look at.  The books are called "On Being A Photographer" and "On Looking At Photographs" by Bill Jay and David Hurn.

In the first book these two world renowned photographers discuss their lives as photographers and what they think being a photographer even means.  They discuss how they got into photography as well as what they think others should do if they seriously want to become photographers.  The book is very readable with the style being commentary.  The reason I started this blog was because I read this book and realized what I really needed to do to even think about taking good photographs.

For me, the key to it all was deciding what things I was going to photograph.  I was going out with my camera with no real purpose snapping away at anything I thought could be a fun photo.  I was pressing the button on my camera and coming home with a bunch of photographs to look at.  While reading the first book I realized I needed a purpose, something to focus my attention on.  I needed to choose a topic or theme that I could get fully involved in, that was accessible to me and that I really enjoyed.  What better than to focus on the furry little scoundrels that cross my path every day.  Having a beautiful scoundrel myself of course makes it that much easier to want to go out and practice.

So, lesson number one to all those amateur photographers: Find something that interests you, that is not too broad a topic and start focusing on that....rather than on anything that comes into your path.

I think this lesson has already helped my photography by allowing me to hone in and focus on specific skills for shooting dogs rather than shooting my camera like a machine gun on anything I see.  Of course this does not mean I won't be trying to get some great shots when I go to Ireland this summer!

Oh, and one other thing, Bill Jay shoots about 3600 shots for each photograph he considers exhibition worthy.

Post One

This is the first of hopefully many posts to my new blog. I have been an amateur photographer now for a little under a year and learning is what it's all about right now. I started out by taking a beginner class at the Chicago Photography Center. The class was an excellent introduction and I recommend anybody interested in photography to take the class or something similar. Their website is http://www.chicagophoto.org/. Although the class was focused more on fine art it is good for any beginner who wants to feel closer to their camera and understand the whizz-bang knobs and dials that they have no clue about.

By the end of the first class we understood the photographers golden triangle: aperture - shutter speed - iso. This was great because up until then I had only ever used the automatic mode. I don't think I have ever used automatic since then. An understand of those "simple" concepts seemed to open up a whole new world to me. I put simple in parenthesis because although they are easy to understand, putting them into practice is a whole other story.

Vaughn

Well, there is no use in blogging about my photographic experiences without posting some pictures so here we go. The photo above is the one I have decided (for the moment) to use as the background to the blog.  It is of my collie Vaughn.  I like the shot because the line of his nose sits well with the line of the pillow that he is lying on.  It's also fairly soft and has the other pillow on the background which I feel rounds out the image.  There are probably some parts that are a bit bright (top left corner) but I think that this might balance out well with the top right corner where its fairly dark.  Vaughn is also a pretty serious dog and I think this is conveyed well.