How to shoot an image of a pretty girl...

[rpcrowe]

Easiest thing is to start off with a pretty girl.

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the pictures did their intended purpose! We had Anabelle posted on our rescue web site for less than 12 hours. Her new adoptive parents, who have previously been approved by our organization, are driving from Prescott, Arizona to Southern California to pick her up...

[Digital]

Very nice photographs, and a very attractive model Richard.



Bruce

[bnnrcn]

Lovely

[Rita]

And pretty she is.

[Cantab]

Richard, I'm going to be taking kitten portraits for a cat rescue organizations website. Is the background you used a type of crushed velvet? We're fostering the six kittens until they're old enough for adoption; their mother will then remain with us.

[Shadowman]

That background wouldn't for any girl except her. Nicely done.

[IzzieK]

Another good one from you, Richard...she is very pretty...'been watching an old episode of Cesar Millan each day and he has some from LA Rescue group he helped that gone loco...

[ied]

A beauty.

Irene

[rpcrowe]

Richard, I'm going to be taking kitten portraits for a cat rescue organizations website. Is the background you used a type of crushed velvet? We're fostering the six kittens until they're old enough for adoption; their mother will then remain with us.

Congratulations on fostering and your future adoption. We have recently adopted a pair of feral cats who will live in our big RV garage. The Feral and Barn Cat Rescue organization has a whole protocol on how to adapt feral barn cats to your barn, so that they will continue living there. We will supply food and shelter and they will keep our area clear of rodents.

Regarding the background material I used for Anabelle. I bought it on eBay. It comes in several colors. The first I purchased was dark blue (since most of our dogs are primarily white).

I paid about ten dollars for the material.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121605398168...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT'

We liked it so much that I purchased an additional teal and purple colors.

I normally use fleece as I did in these portraits of Anabelle.





I have fleece in a multitude of colors. The way I use the background material is to place it over an armchair. I light the portraits with an on-camera hotshoe flash bounced off the ceiling and modified with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro. I often use a 4 CFL bulb softbox and a OTT hobby light as fill and background lights. I don't seem to have any problems with mixing the light sources. I use a WhiBal target.

[Cantab]

Richard, many thanks for your illustrated comments, including the reminder to use my recently acquired WhiBal card. The kittens are dark in colouring, two are completely black, so it will be intresting to get texture in the fur but have them still looking black.

[rpcrowe]

Bruce,

I looked back on my photos to find some black puppies and these were all I could find:
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My simple lighting setup worked pretty well on these two black puppies and on one of them as it grew a bit bigger...
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Of course the last image has some tan highlights. I have a coal black barn cat but she hides whenever anyone is in the area and I have not been able to photograph her.

[JamesScott86]

Excellent captures - well taken.

[Cantab]

Richard, thank you for posting these shots. The last one is particularly helpful as we have some burgundy coloured material which I'll try. It's darker than the mauve in your portrait shot but I'm hoping will provide a suitable contrast to the black fur. Apart from the two black kittens, there are three torties whose colour range is similar to the puppy's. There's also a tabby but she's already been spoken for.

These six kittens and their mother were rescued from a kill shelter somewhere in California and emigrated up here to Canada when the kittens were, I believe, probably a week or two old. Their story reminded me of comments I've seen in some of your posts about rushing to a shelter somewhere in California to rescue a Maltese.

Thankfully the spay and neuter program seems to be working well in my part of the world; the result is that some rescue organizations have waiting lists for kitten adoptions.

[rpcrowe]

"Thankfully the spay and neuter program seems to be working well in my part of the world; the result is that some rescue organizations have waiting lists for kitten adoptions."

Bruce,

There is nothing that we would like better than to go out of business because of no animals needing rescue. Unfortunately, I don't see that coming!

We have noticed that it is easier to get dogs adopted in our Pacific Northwest. We occasionally move a really hard to place dog to a foster parent we know in the State of Washington. These dogs (often Chihuahuas which are hard to place in Southern California) will get adopted fairly quickly. My son-in-law is a coast to coast salesman and he travels to the Pacific Northwest quite often. He will bring one of our dogs up there when needed.

BTW: one of our barn kitties is a tortise-shell. There is absolutely no problems photographing her. As an aside, something like 98% of tortise-shell cats are females...

[Cantab]

Richard, I recently stumbled across this website of a group of pilots who periodically fly rescued dogs and cats from California up to the Pacific Northwest: http://www.wingsofrescue.org.

[rpcrowe]

Bruce, Thanks for the wingsofrescue link. We will investigate it.

I am driving from San Diego County, California to the Phoenix, Arizona area (about 350 miles or about 563 Km. one way) on Friday to pick up a rescue Goldendoodle who may need surgery. We have an excellent vet here who has a top-notch veterinary surgeon on her staff. We hope he will be able to save the dog's leg.

I get to try out my new Subaru Forester on a long road trip. I am also taking my old Canon D60 (not a 60D), which has been converted to full time infra red photography. The driving should take about 7 hours so I will stay overnight in the Phoenix area. That way, I will have some extra time to stop along the trip out there to take a few pictures...

Best laid plans of mice and men... Charlie, the Doodle is being delivered to San Bernadino, CA which is only about 90-miles from me. I will pick him up this afternoon. No 700-mile round trip with motel and meal costs for this trip. Quite a savings at about $25 USD for gas, rather than $250 USD for gas, hotel and meals.

And the saved $225 is not going into buying photo gear (although I did consider it).

[Nat]

Congratulations on fostering and your future adoption. We have recently adopted a pair of feral cats who will live in our big RV garage. The Feral and Barn Cat Rescue organization has a whole protocol on how to adapt feral barn cats to your barn, so that they will continue living there. We will supply food and shelter and they will keep our area clear of rodents.

Regarding the background material I used for Anabelle. I bought it on eBay. It comes in several colors. The first I purchased was dark blue (since most of our dogs are primarily white).

I paid about ten dollars for the material.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/121605398168...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT'

We liked it so much that I purchased an additional teal and purple colors.

I normally use fleece as I did in these portraits of Anabelle.





I have fleece in a multitude of colors. The way I use the background material is to place it over an armchair. I light the portraits with an on-camera hotshoe flash bounced off the ceiling and modified with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro. I often use a 4 CFL bulb softbox and a OTT hobby light as fill and background lights. I don't seem to have any problems with mixing the light sources. I use a WhiBal target.

I recently bought 2 33" shoot through umbrellas and they came with 3 45 Watt 5500k Daylight bulbs. I found these were not enough light, had to put my camera on high ISO, and my D90 was a bit noisy.... Do you think I should have bought a soft box like yours? What wattage are 4 bulbs in it? The dog in your first image on this thread is sitting on some kind of fabric with circles sticking up, it wasn't fleece....but it does look very nice!
.

[rpcrowe]

Nat...

The CFL bulbs in the softbox are simply fill lights and the Ottlight is used as a background light. They would (despite the softbox having four of them) not be bright enough to use as the main light.

The main light comes from my camera mounted Canon hotshoe flashes (I have several of these from the 420EX to the 600EX-RT and they all work equally as well). The flash is modified with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro ( www.dembflashproducts.com ) and the flashtube is pointed straight up, bouncing off the ceiling.

The exposure is set at 1/60 second @ f/4 using ISO 160. Shooting wide open (with my 70-200mm f/4L IS lens) allows faster recycle time for the flash because the unit doesn't need to fire full power and dump its entire charge. I usually shoot with camera in manual and the flash in TTL but, I get equally good exposures in the P or AV mode, again wit the flash in TTL. I always shoot RAW and PP in Photoshop CS6 with some help from NIK software.

I always shoot in the horizontal (landscape) format and will crop to square or portrait formats when needed. Having the shots available in landscape format allows me to use them for calendars whenever I need to. The files from my Canon 7D camera are big enough to crop verticals out of horizontal shots...

I sit in a roll-around office chair when shooting because that places me about eye level with my small dogs and allows me mobility.

I got the BG material on eBay for about ten U.S. Dollars each. http://www.ebay.com/itm/181738374643...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I have a dark blue, a teal and a lavender colored BG. They are not "quite" as large as I like but, do the job. There is a greater variety of colors in fleece material and my wife is often getting discount coupons from the fabric store. The fleece is also wider and the length is however long you purchase. I usually get two yards for my dog backgrounds.

We use a thin dog show lead to secure the dog and I clone it out. However, kitties often don't do well with leads of any type. A feather attractor usually works to get a cat's attention. Another thing that will work (although it seems strange) is a small empty potato chip bag crunched up and tied to a stick with string or ribbon. The bag is crinkly sounding and the price certainly is right.

I will also use shoot through and bounce umbrellas for more formalized portrait sessions. But I use studio strobes for that. I have had a pair of White Lightning WL-500 strobes for over 20-years - AND I BOUGHT THEM USED. I paid $50 each for them and, pro-rated, they have cost me pennies a week.



There are some very-very inexpensive Chinese strobes usually available which can be used quite effectively with umbrellas. http://www.ebay.com/itm/2PCS-160W-Ph...item5aeaac4c9c

I have a couple of these and will use them as hair or BG lights for human portraits. I certainly would not choose these for 8 hours a day, five days a week professional shooting but, for occasional shooting, in close, they work quite well. Like the potato chip bag, you can't beat the prices of these strobes.

[Otavio]

Beautiful shots, Richard. And congratulations for the nice job you do for these pets!

[Nat]

Thank you for all the great advice. I just ordered the Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro, should get here in about a week.....I'm not going to do any pro photography, but I do like to fool around with family, friends and pets and objects....it's my hobby, my therapy, my leisure time! I f I had to do it professionally, I would be so stressed and that would send me over the edge!! Your photographs are always so good, I appreciate you taking the time to help me! It's like when I was painting. As long as it was for pleasure and fun and therapy, I loved it! But when a friend talked me into doing some shows, and it became work and then people started asking for "special" things added, I gave it up. I no longer got the "relief" from it I needed. I have my day job, but I need the therapy! I have adopted 4 dogs over the last 20 years, best dogs I have ever had. One German Shepherd had fear aggression, and the humane society was going to put her down. She was 2....we had her for ten more years, and she was the best family dog ever! Just not so good with strangers, but she was crate trained and that worked for us when needed. So many people dump cats here (I live in a rural area) and over the years I have spayed or neutered and raised many many cats. The newest one came to us already neutered, but with a bad tooth. I had the tooth pulled, updated on shots, and trying to get adopted thru Cat Connections in our area. But people want kittens. He's a 16 pound beautiful orange cat. I would keep him, but he does not get along with my other 3 house cats or dogs.....we have tried everything.....I will try to get some decent shots of him....