My Christmas Dogs

[rpcrowe]

These are the four permanent Crowe dogs. Left to right, Holly a goldendoodle, Robin a poodle mix, Sasha a rough coated Jack Russel Terrier, and Oliver a Lhasa Apso mix. I wanted an image of the dogs for a family Christmas Card...



Every time I add a dog to a group shot, the difficulty increases geometrically but, my friends were pretty cooperative during this session...

[Shadowman]

Nice, festive card.

[Umrius]

What they are cute! Great job

[Tom Barry]

Really excellent.

[rpcrowe]

Thanks folks... The dogs were surprisingly well behaved for this shoot... All shots were decent with just a turn of a head here and an eye blink there to separate them...

I am disappointed in the quality of my Christmas cards from Vista Print because they are way too dark. I have inquired what, if anything, they will do to correct this problem... I don't expect an answer until Monday which is the first working day since I complained...

[Otavio]

It must have been really difficult to obtain such a shot, Richard. They, indeed, tend not to cooperate, especially when in group. Anyway, you've got a beautifull shot of your "dog family members"! Well done!

[rpcrowe]

Thanks for the post Octavio. The portrait was my wife's idea. I wasn't really in favor of shooting it since, as you mentioned, it can be difficult to achieve a shot with a group of dogs. I was absolutely astounded when my four friends just sat and posed for me...

I did a quick shot of my daughter's dogs at a Halloween party and that gave me an indication that with a little bit of work, the shot could be managed...



Of course, the shot needed a better background, some better posing and better lighting. The shot of my daughter's dogs was done with just an on camera flash bounced off the ceiling. I used a Christmas fabric for the background of my dog shot and used a combination of a softbox as a key light and a flash bounced with a diffuser reflector as a fill.