My Dog Daisy

[Nat]

I was setting up to take some photos of my grandbaby using one umbrella with remote flash set up to left and above aimed 45 degrees towards backdrop, one white reflector to the right and my camera flash diffused with a translucent food container...( ) I'm no pro....just a grandmother...but while waiting for my grand-daughter this weekend, I had to practice with my daisy....

Daisy


Pretty Daisy

Not liking the huge catch light in the first two, guess I needed to move that umbrella behind her head? and the last one I added a dot.....there was not catch light. Advice please, if you have it.



Lazy Daisy

[KimC]

Pretty dog. It seems that you are shooting down at Daisy in all of the images. In my opinion, i have had better results when shooting at their eye level.... That would eliminate her from looking up and showing so much white in her eye.

[Shadowman]

Nice rich colors, the eyes need some work on the first and second capture.

[Nat]

Thank you. What would you do with those eyes? Clone out the umbrella and do I see the reflector in the right eye? I think eye level would have been better, too. Thanks again!

[Shadowman]

Thank you. What would you do with those eyes? Clone out the umbrella and do I see the reflector in the right eye? I think eye level would have been better, too. Thanks again!

I'd do a reshoot. See Richard's work.

Difficult Portrait Session

[Shadowman]

Here's a cute list written from the pet's point of view. See number 8 regarding the eyes.

http://www.adorama.com/alc/0008302/a...og-photography

[rpcrowe]

Beautiful boxer and she appears quite relaxed around the camera which is a very important thing. I have just completed shooting eleven females who were used for breeding at a puppy mill with little to no human contact. They were terrified of people and my results could not hide the fact that they were scared. Having rapport with your dog is one of the most important facets of portraiture (having a trained dog also helps greatly).

Anyway, I agree with Kim regarding trying to shoot at the dog's eye level. I most often do my small dog portraits with the poochies on a living room chair while I am sitting on a roll around office chair. This allows me mobility but keeps me low enough to shoot directly into the dogs face. I have shot boxers in a studio setup with the dog on a table, using a green table cover and a blue sky background.



This of course is complicated and takes more than one person - especially with multiple dogs...



Outdoors is a somewhat easier. I still like to elevate the dogs a bit...



In portraits #1 and #2 you are getting the camera's flash reflected back from the dogs retina resulting in the circular greenish lights in the dogs eyes. These are NOT catch lights. In fact, superimposed in the green circles of portrait #1, you can see two tiny catch lights. This is akin to red eyes in humans when the flash is too close to the axis of the lens and the light from the flash is reflected back from the human retina as the dreaded "RED EYE"...

IMO, it is pretty difficult to correct this in PP and still retain a natural looking eye. I usually try to clone a black circle and superimpose it over the green circle in the eye and then try to clone a tiny white circle as a pseudo catch light. This procedure sometimes works and sometimes doesn't work...

The obvious question is, how to prevent this when shooting dogs. The "red eye reduction" in a camera doesn't seem to work very well with dogs. That consists of a light from the flash or camera just prior to the exposure which will hopefully close down the human iris and not let the light enter and reflect back to the camera...

I think that the easiest way to prevent this happening in dog portraits is to ensure that your lighting is not close to the axis of the lens. My standard setup for dog photography is bouncing a hotshoe flash off the ceiling with a Joe Demb Flash Diffuser Pro (DFD) sending a bit of the light forward to fill in the eyes. I use a softbox at camera left about 45 degrees to the subject and a small background light. This will "usually" prevent the monster green eye effect. However, the DFD has an articulating FlipIt reflector as part of the set up. If that FlipIt is angled too far towards the dog, it will send too much light forward and might cause green eye. I usually shoot with the Flip It straight up...

I will also use studio strobes for more complicated shoots (like the multiple boxers above). I just keep the lights away from the axis of the lens...

I am also thinking that another BG color rather than white might be more flattering for Daisy. Perhaps you have a quilt or a bed spread which would be flattering. However, IMO, shooting big dogs outdoors is easiest. I always use a long lens and try to get the background out of focus. Green ground cover or grass looks good with a tan dog if he BG is somewhat OOF.



I "almost" always shoot with a long focal length lens, but sometimes there is a grab shot that I do with whatever lens is on the camera...

[Nat]

Thank you Kim, I agree, I was too high up....will have to get down to Daisy's level.
Thanks, John, cute list of rules, enjoyed reading it. Good advice!
Richard, your dog shots are always good, even with the difficult dogs. Great work you do to help rehome them. Thanks for the advice....will try another shoot. Although, I do like the white....I didn't have anything to replace the white with. I made this set up with seamless 53 inch paper because I have a friend who wants to do a cake smash, and she wants bright shots of her son.....she showed me what she wanted and I used Daisy for a practice shoot. I tried a brown blanket I had, but it was too dark for Daisy, and the pink one just didn't flatter her red head, LOL!! (I gave my beige/tan one away to my friend whose house burned down in February....gave her all my spare blankets, plus a lot of other stuff) Will keep trying. Thanks, everyone.