Just another post of Kulshan

[lovelife65]

We take them 2-3 times a week to a huge 40+ acre dog park in Coupeville (Whidbey Island) so they can run and we can do some recall training. (not a huge fan of dog parks overall, but this park later in the evening is usually empty).

The pups are almost a year old so up to an hour of hiking with them when not going to dog park.
This was mid evening around 7 so the lighting was pretty low. Could not capture River this go around as she was moving too fast and just wasn't cooperating.

Kulshan loves balls and footballs.
Yes, he is quite tall. His dad (a black field lab) was quite leggy too. I've asked the breeder if we should be concerned over how tall he is and she said nope.

They are both wonderful dogs and we are quite lucky humans. Compositions may have been better had he been looking at me, but sometimes it's not in the cards and man are they fast.

Thanks for peeking.

#1


#2 - carrying a deflated football (unfortunately a little soft in the capture)

[Shadowman]

Nice set.

[LePetomane]

He's a handsome boy. I need to get out with our new pup and get some pics.

[lovelife65]

He's a handsome boy. I need to get out with our new pup and get some pics.

Thanks PD. What did you guys get?
Would love to see some photos.

[lovelife65]

Nice set.

Thanks I didn’t do him justice he and sis are beautiful.

[rpcrowe]

Great looking dog! I love long legged dogs. My Goldendoodle, Holly, really shows her poodle background in her long legs.

[lovelife65]

Great looking dog! I love long legged dogs. My Goldendoodle, Holly, really shows her poodle background in her long legs.

Thank you Richard. He is a handsome boy, both pups have turned out pretty fantastic. He doesn't even have to jump up on the bed, he just walks right up. . I keep asking him if he's sure he doesn't have Great Dane in him.
Would love to see some posts of Holly!

[rpcrowe]

Thank you Richard. He is a handsome boy, both pups have turned out pretty fantastic. He doesn't even have to jump up on the bed, he just walks right up. . I keep asking him if he's sure he doesn't have Great Dane in him.
Would love to see some posts of Holly!

Holly at seven weeks and sixteen pounds


As a young adult showing her long legs


As an adult






Pool fun with Shadow her Lab best buddy


Holly and her buddies last Christmas - she turned 11 on Christnas day...

[lovelife65]

Beautiful photographs and nice looking pups. She is pretty lanky. It's less drastic looking due to her longer fur, but she's a cute pup. How is her bone/joint health?
Thank you for sharing!

[DanK]

Sharon,

Since this is a photography forum, I hope you won't mind a few comments about that aspect of things.

A number of things make Richard's dog pictures striking. One is that they are carefully framed and composed. Another is that he is careful about the backgrounds. A third is effective postprocessing. Another is that he seems to be careful about how he positions himself: a few are looking down from a normal standing position, but most are not. Put all of these things together, and you get very appealing photos.

I did a very quick edit of your first photo to illustrate a few things you can do. I increased contrast in two ways: I slightly changed the black and white points, and I imposed a curve adjustment. I then added some sharpening, in this case using smart sharpen, but other techniques would be fine. Finally, I cropped the image to get rid of irrelevant and distracting background material and to place the dog in a deliberately chosen position in the frame. (I placed the dog's head about 1/3 of the way in.) Here is the result:



Not a polished edit by any means, but it's enough to see how much these sorts of changes matter.

In some cases, you can't do it all in post. For example, if you frame in an unfortunate way--cropping detail you would want (as I unfortunately did in a photo I posted recently) or including really distracting background material--there may be nothing you can to about it. For example, you framed the second shot so that the dog's feet are cropped off. The only solution for things like that is to look at framing when you take the shot.

Dan

[lovelife65]

Sharon,

Since this is a photography forum, I hope you won't mind a few comments about that aspect of things.

A number of things make Richard's dog pictures striking. One is that they are carefully framed and composed. Another is that he is careful about the backgrounds. A third is effective postprocessing. Another is that he seems to be careful about how he positions himself: a few are looking down from a normal standing position, but most are not. Put all of these things together, and you get very appealing photos.

I did a very quick edit of your first photo to illustrate a few things you can do. I increased contrast in two ways: I slightly changed the black and white points, and I imposed a curve adjustment. I then added some sharpening, in this case using smart sharpen, but other techniques would be fine. Finally, I cropped the image to get rid of irrelevant and distracting background material and to place the dog in a deliberately chosen position in the frame. (I placed the dog's head about 1/3 of the way in.) Here is the result:



Not a polished edit by any means, but it's enough to see how much these sorts of changes matter.

In some cases, you can't do it all in post. For example, if you frame in an unfortunate way--cropping detail you would want (as I unfortunately did in a photo I posted recently) or including really distracting background material--there may be nothing you can to about it. For example, you framed the second shot so that the dog's feet are cropped off. The only solution for things like that is to look at framing when you take the shot.

Dan

Thanks Dan, for taking the time to comment and edit. I had pushed the processing a little further originally, but I felt it changed his colors to unnaturally dark a bit too much (he is a very very light yellow boy), as well as added some weird artifacts to the photo. I see a lot of weird reflective type elements (forgive the lack of technical knowledge on what this is) all over his face/head in your edit.

I think one of the differences with this vs. Richards is that Richards are more "studio" / portraits vs just an attempt to catch a dog that is moving a lot in a natural environment, in admittedly hard lighting conditions. I was also sitting on the ground. I certainly have much room to improve as I don't shoot these types of photos much other than for fun later and not to take seriously. I know this isn't the forum to really post those kinds of photos, so I rarely do.
I do see where you are coming from, so the critique is appreciated!

[DanK]

Sharon,

Your comments about color changes brings up an important issue that isn't well known. Coincidentally, I was trading e-mails with someone about this when I saw your post.

When you adjust contrast in most ways, the software is acting on the three color channels, R, G, and B. E.g., if you impose an S-shaped curve to increase contrast, you are actually performing that action on each of the color channels. The result can be substantial shifts in color; the colors will seem more saturated, and the balance among colors may seem to shift.

If you use Lightroom, there is (as far as I know) no way around this. if you use Photoshop, it's easy to avoid: just change the blend mode from "normal" to "luminosity". If you do that, you are only acting on luminosity and not on color.

I just repeated what I did with your photo, adding a bit of local contrast (essentially, clarity) as well. Then I switched all of the adjustments to the luminosity blend mode. The colors end up much more like the original, but the edit has more pop than the original:



Re doing candids of dogs: I don't do many of dogs, but I do LOTS of candids of little kids. This creates the same problem: it's hard to keep track of things like framing when a 3-year-old is bouncing around a room. In that situation, I take advantage of the fact that digital images are free and take lots, assuming that I will have to throw most out.

Dan

[rpcrowe]

I try to keep a camera handy with fresh batteries and a memory card installed... Now that I own a few cameras, it is easier to do this... The second shot was POSED These days I would simply edit out the lead but, I was not quite as proficient back then.

Most of the other shots were as I saw Holly in what I thought were good environments, especially on the lawn covered with the Jacaranda blossoms. I try to use fill flash when shooting Holly because she has rather deep set smallish eyes and the catchlights from the flash tends to animate them.

Here are a couple of unposed shots of Holly in action...









Holly is getting a bit stiff in the joints but, she is on a daily dose of Dasequin which helps a lot...

[lovelife65]

Sharon,

Your comments about color changes brings up an important issue that isn't well known. Coincidentally, I was trading e-mails with someone about this when I saw your post.

When you adjust contrast in most ways, the software is acting on the three color channels, R, G, and B. E.g., if you impose an S-shaped curve to increase contrast, you are actually performing that action on each of the color channels. The result can be substantial shifts in color; the colors will seem more saturated, and the balance among colors may seem to shift.

If you use Lightroom, there is (as far as I know) no way around this. if you use Photoshop, it's easy to avoid: just change the blend mode from "normal" to "luminosity". If you do that, you are only acting on luminosity and not on color.

I just repeated what I did with your photo, adding a bit of local contrast (essentially, clarity) as well. Then I switched all of the adjustments to the luminosity blend mode. The colors end up much more like the original, but the edit has more pop than the original:



Re doing candids of dogs: I don't do many of dogs, but I do LOTS of candids of little kids. This creates the same problem: it's hard to keep track of things like framing when a 3-year-old is bouncing around a room. In that situation, I take advantage of the fact that digital images are free and take lots, assuming that I will have to throw most out.

Dan

Dan
Thank you so much for your gracious comments and critique. The second edit is so much better! I get what you are saying about the contrast. I really should learn photoshop vs Lightroom. I just need more time with camera to get it to where my editing is minimal, that would be ideal. I love my camera just wish I could spend more time with it
Agree about candida. Kids aren’t quite as fast as dogs but trying to take more may result in a keeper or two.
Thank you again for your kindness in replying.

[DanK]

I just need more time with camera to get it to where my editing is minimal, that would be ideal. I love my camera just wish I could spend more time with it

Sharon,

One more thought: while it is important to get as much right in camera as possible, most of what I raised has nothing to do with that. The one issue that is a matter of using the camera better is the initial framing and composition. However, the other issues I raised can't be fixed in camera. The shot I edited has relatively flat lighting. That is a property of the scene, not of the way you used the camera. Lighting of this sort has some advantages--it gave you a good dispersion of light to dark (the histogram is quite wide), and it avoided unpleasant, harsh shadows. However, it also gave you an image that is relatively low in contrast. The only options are to accept that or change it in processing. Your selection of a picture style, if you shoot JPEG, is doing this--those styles are just recipes of postprocessing edits, including contrast, saturation, and sharpness. But for real control, one has to take over the processing oneself.

[lovelife65]

Sharon,

One more thought: while it is important to get as much right in camera as possible, most of what I raised has nothing to do with that. The one issue that is a matter of using the camera better is the initial framing and composition. However, the other issues I raised can't be fixed in camera. The shot I edited has relatively flat lighting. That is a property of the scene, not of the way you used the camera. Lighting of this sort has some advantages--it gave you a good dispersion of light to dark (the histogram is quite wide), and it avoided unpleasant, harsh shadows. However, it also gave you an image that is relatively low in contrast. The only options are to accept that or change it in processing. Your selection of a picture style, if you shoot JPEG, is doing this--those styles are just recipes of postprocessing edits, including contrast, saturation, and sharpness. But for real control, one has to take over the processing oneself.

Dan, makes sense and yes I understand. The lighting was not ideal, it was evening and the sun was very low. I guess what I meant was choosing a better time to shoot and getting a better image SOOC. For composition, as already discussed sometimes it's hard to really compose when there's a lot of movement. I was sitting on the ground waiting for our pups to hold still!

I do shoot in raw(as well as .jpeg), my camera does have some great settings to use for .jpegs (several film simulations) and maybe I should experiment more with those as well. It also allows some corrections in camera, I just got lazy and didn't do the work I should have. I just tend to not like an over processed look, so it's a fine line to walk I guess, but certainly this image wasn't taken far enough.

[lovelife65]

I try to keep a camera handy with fresh batteries and a memory card installed... Now that I own a few cameras, it is easier to do this... The second shot was POSED These days I would simply edit out the lead but, I was not quite as proficient back then.

Most of the other shots were as I saw Holly in what I thought were good environments, especially on the lawn covered with the Jacaranda blossoms. I try to use fill flash when shooting Holly because she has rather deep set smallish eyes and the catchlights from the flash tends to animate them.

Here are a couple of unposed shots of Holly in action...









Holly is getting a bit stiff in the joints but, she is on a daily dose of Dasequin which helps a lot...

These are really great shots! I am obviously still learning, and truth be told I should not have taken the photos in the light I did. It's all about practice and getting feedback, when someone is kind enough to provide it. I don't have experience with dog photography, but figured our two pups are great subjects so I am starting. . Thanks for posting.

[LePetomane]

Thanks PD. What did you guys get?
Would love to see some photos.

Sharon, we got another Bouvier des Flandres puppy. Sally is with the two other co-owners for another breeding and the show & competition circuit. She went in October and it would be next January at the earliest that we would see her. So we took a pup and named her Lois. I'll try to get pictures but I can guarantee they will not be the caliber of yours or Richards. Sally will go to an older couple that we know at the end of next year. They live on a dairy farm in Wisconsin.

Lois is a (not so) little devil. She and Nikki get along well. She's 13 weeks old and 19 pounds. All legs. She'll be a tall one.

[Manfred M]

I just tend to not like an over processed look, so it's a fine line to walk I guess, but certainly this image wasn't taken far enough.

Neither do I, but it takes a lot of time to learn how to pull the most out of our images without looking like they have been "pushed too hard". The ideal state is to work an image in post-processing and have it look more natural than the straight out of camera image. If you look at the old masters like Ansel Adams and Karsh; their images were post-processed very extensively, yet they look very natural.

[rpcrowe]

IMO, don't ever not take a photo because the light or some other aspect is not perfect. It is better to have an image with less than great lighting than to not have the image at all.

Your pictures show Kushan as he is; a big beautiful dog on his way between puppyhood and being an adult, For many dogs, people too, this is an awkward time but, Kushan is really developing into a beautiful boy.

You simply cannot have too many images of your dogs. I look back on images of dogs that I have shared my life with who are no longer with me and these images keep the bond alive. Here is one of my first digital images of my Sara Lee, shot with a Canon 10D and a kit lens in 2004. Sara was an 85-pound Golden Retriever - German Shepherd - Wolf mixture. I have a framed print of this hanging in my hallway and there is not a day that goes past without my thinking of her. She died 12-years ago from cancer.



The image right shadows on her face were a bit dark so I used the camera's pop-up flash to balance out the light a bit...

I think that was the only time I ever used the pop up flash...