The best of friends

[wilgk]

I have recently joined a Dog Handlers class, as part of our local U3A classes.
I had never heard of University of the 3rd Age, until my husband passed the group while riding his bike in the park.

It is wonderful fun, we have a rally course, agility course and general obedience sections, that our dog mali and I take part in.

Of course I had to take the camera along 1 day.

These are of Bob and his dog Harriet at the rally-O course.

[Shadowman]

Nice shots.

[wilgk]

Thank you John

[Manfred M]

Nice set Kay - I have a niece and a cousin who do agility work with dogs and the relationship between the dog and owner(s) seem to be very much along the lines of what you have captured in the first two images. One can definitely see the connection between Bob and Harriet

The third image is a lot trickier to do and in my view not nearly as successful as the first two images. Trying to show the course and trainer in the same shot is tricky at best. The back of the dog and the trainer are not all that interesting at the best of times, so if you had captured them facing you , the would have given you a stronger shot. Showing the markers and cones is important to giving the viewer an indication of what is happening, but it also reduces the space on the image to the participants. Reducing what is shown there would move Bob and Harriet into a more prominent placement in the image and would have given you a stronger result.

[Donald]

This is a wonderful image in terms of capturing the connection between man and dog.

You were working with very harsh light and it wasn't very forgiving. But despite that, the pose of both of the main characters is wonderful.

I did some pictures of dog agility and what I found it that you only get the best image when you take an owner and dog away from the training/competition and work with them solely on the basis of getting the shot. Otherwise, as a photographer, you are the least important element in what's going on.

[rpcrowe]

Great images, especially #'s 1 and 2 showing the connection between the dog and the human.

I love agility but, the difficulty in getting good images is increased when the size differential between the dog and handler grows more disproportionate. In other words, it is easier (IMO) to shoot a medium to large dog and handler than to get an image of a toy sized dog and handler.

If this was not shot during an agility event (I suspect that this was shot during practice); fill flash could even out the harsh shadows a bit. However, during an event, flash is prohibited because it might distract or spook the dogs.

[pschlute]

Harriet looks a lot like one of my hounds, little Ripley.

[wilgk]

Nice breed aren't they?
Bob & his wife Nanette recently got a new puppy to join Harriet, Bob said he didn't mind gender or colour... as long as they didn't get a golden girl...
They have a golden girl

[wilgk]

Thank you Richard
Yes, I thought a drop of flash would have helped, but was very wary of how this might affect the dogs.

[wilgk]

Thank you for your comments Manfred, indeed it is Murphy's law that the way I will be facing is often the opposite to the action.

[wilgk]

This is a wonderful image in terms of capturing the connection between man and dog.

You were working with very harsh light and it wasn't very forgiving. But despite that, the pose of both of the main characters is wonderful.

I did some pictures of dog agility and what I found it that you only get the best image when you take an owner and dog away from the training/competition and work with them solely on the basis of getting the shot. Otherwise, as a photographer, you are the least important element in what's going on.

Thank you Donald, for your comments.
They did ask me to take some photos of the Instructor using hand signals to help the newbies/visual learners get started, again fill flash would have helped, but not worth the risk of frightening dogs.
At least better position lighting wise.

[Donald]

Fill flash would be frowned upon. Certainly I was asked not to use flash, which I wouldn't have done anyway.

[Donald]

This action was created especially for the camera. There is no way I could by lying under the fence in a competition of even regular training session.

Olly is highly trained and his owner was happy (and I think Olly was to) to jump this fence over and over again until I felt I had the shot.

In fact, the owner took this picture to a tattoo parlour and got this picture tattoed on his arm.

[wilgk]

Terrific!
Thanks for showing this one.

[pschlute]

Nice breed aren't they?
Bob & his wife Nanette recently got a new puppy to join Harriet, Bob said he didn't mind gender or colour... as long as they didn't get a golden girl...
They have a golden girl

Do they look a bit like my pair of rascals ?

[wilgk]

Oh yes indeed!
Lovely rascals