Next Christmas card picture

[pschlute]

We have a new addition to our family so I did a shoot for next Christmas's card.

Little Rudy on the left is five months old. Attempting to get him to keep still was quite hysterical.

IMGP0714 by Peter Schluter, on Flickr

[royent]

I'm not sure, but I think I might like it better if they were all looking at the camera, and it's a bit tight at the bottom.
Roy

[pschlute]

I'm not sure, but I think I might like it better if they were all looking at the camera, and it's a bit tight at the bottom.
Roy

You are right on both counts. But I was forced to crop to remove my partners arm, and ideally would have used off camera flash so I would not have to worry about red-eye.

[billtils]

You are right on both counts. But I was forced to crop to remove my partners arm, and ideally would have used off camera flash so I would not have to worry about red-eye.

Or to put it another way, this is a very nice, real-world photograph!

[pschlute]

I knew before I started it would be a struggle to get the three to sit still for more than a nano-second. We were in fits of laughter the whole time trying to do this, I should have made a video !

[rpcrowe]

At times it is a struggle to get multiple dogs to stay in one place and to face me - on other occasions, they surprise me and cooperate from the get-go. One of my tricks to get their attention and have them face me is to hold a little squeaker between my teeth and bite it to make a noise. Usually their first reaction is to look toward the squeak which seems to come from the camera. I buy the squeakers in packages from craft stores - they are meant to be sewn into dog toys...

It works...


I use on camera flash bounced off the ceiling modified with a Flash Diffuser Pro. I also frequently use a softbox with four CFL bulbs in combination with the on camera flash!

When I need space at the bottom - especially if the bottom simply shows plain carpet or the background cloth I am using, I will add some canvas with the color of the carpet or the background material...