It would have been a good thing to set up this week's theme in studio using a dark backdrop, one light and dark props (if any).  However, when you have an entire walk-in closet shelf collapse, and that closet is off the studio, the room immediately becomes the holding tank for all the items in the closet while the shelf is being repaired.  Yes, this did happen, and, yes, it is an ongoing project.

There are other rooms in my house, of course, but I started reading up on photographing a low key image outdoors, thought it might be a challenge, and decided to give it a whirl.

I had two choices.  First, I could use one light and take the image outside after 9:00 p.m. when it was very dark.  Second, I could use Mother Nature's light at the almost-end-of-the-day, and do the rest in post processing.

There is a misconception in the first option.  Low key does not necessarily mean lack of light.  "Low key" means the vast majority of the tones in the scene are darker than middle gray.  Low key is independent of illumination.  I read that it is possible to take a low key image in the daylight, if you find shadows, or perhaps late enough in the day where the light is waning.

Let me share my low key image below, then we can talk about how I got there.

This is Danny.  Using a black and white dog made is either good or bad depending on how you look at it. We are used to white being bright, so it's easy to see when it's not, and track that "darker than middle grey."  On the other hand, depending on your light source and strength, you can really blow out the white.  This photograph was taken at 6:58 p.m. (along with about 20 other photos--I have about two that worked, this being one of them).  That light is not from a strobe or flash.  It is from the sky.  The light comes at an angle between our house and the trees.  There is just a small sliver at the right time of day, and this is why I selected the timeframe.  At a certain angle you can look behind Danny and see the tops of trees, the hill line and even some of the lines of our fence.  I left them there and didn't totally black out the background, because I wanted some depth in the photo, and a small outline on his left ear.  Remember, I am using no hair light, no back light, nothing.  This is all natural light.

You don't "place" Danny.  Danny decides where he wants to be and you hope it's where you might want him to be and then he stays there for quite some time of his own accord.  He happened to place himself about 12 feet from our chain link fence, smack dab where that light was hitting his side.  That is the last light of the day heading toward a sunset.

I followed the directions from the readings and research that I did.  Camera at ISO 100, change the speed to either let in or decrease the light (my speed was actually at 1/1000 to decrease the light).  Be sure the subject is placed at least 10 feet from any background (so that 12 feet worked).  Some other specifics:  I used f/5.6, spot metering, and the focal length was 180mm.  In post, I took most of the golden light out of Danny's coat to keep the image  in a simple color scheme.  I darkened the background a bit.

And there you have it.  It's fun to experiment like this.  Having done this once, I might do some things a little differently the next time.  I still want to shoot the studio shot and see how that turns out.  To see more low key images, the blog circle is up and ready to go.  Start here with Kim Hollis of BARKography based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Have a wonderful weekend!

I cannot deny I have been pretty stoked about this week's theme.  I had been thinking about some composite ideas for a while, usually writing them down for planning purposes, and hunting down the right images to help bring them to fruition.  The excitement heightened when the "Fantasy" theme was selected for the week, as I had just put a few images into my "stock" folder that I knew would work with a recent photo I hadn't yet processed.

I have been carefully squirreling away some stock images, whether free or purchased, and filing images I have taken myself into a stock folder.  Things like backgrounds, skies, bland/colorless images of my own pets.  I had taken a photo of our cat, Barney, this past week, when he followed me onto the back patio while I was trying to capture a bluebird photo.

Barney always looks so wistful in his photos, almost like he is thinking of far greater things.  In this particular photo, he led me down the path of daydreaming, so I started mulling over what cats might dream about.  That is the process that led to my image this week.

First, below, find the three images I used to construct the final one.

Barney loves to lay on the patio porch wall, and as you can see (this is the original RAW image with no edits, just converted to JPEG) he is against a pretty bland background, which screams for additions of color.    The first thing I did in the editing process, was remove the lines from the vinyl siding behind him.  I left the rest of the image intact, and edited it with a blank background. 

Since I wanted Barney to be dreaming, I used a sky overlay called "Dotted Sky."  I've made it into a JPEG here for you to see, but it really is an overlay which I purchased as part of a series.  I had to work it into the scene properly, then edit it to fit my idea.

The image of the fish in a bowl is an adobe stock free image.  (Adobe has a huge volume of fish in bowls.) I thought about using a photo with a fish jumping out of the bowl, but knew I would have to change the viewpoint focus in Barney's eyes.  I opted for the fish in a bowl so he could appear to be staring at it.  I still had to change Barney's eyes somewhat to focus in the correct direction, but not as much as I would have for a jumping fish.  The fish in the bowl was the hardest item to work into the scene.  I actually experimented with glass bowls and the level of distortion they provided to objects behind them, in order to finalize the placement and editing into the scene.

The final image, which I'm calling "Cat Dream #19" is below.

I had loads of fun working on this!  I hope you like it!

I am looking forward to seeing what others have done.  Fantasy is a wide open theme, and can be so much fun.  Feel free to comment and give me your thoughts on this one.  I am relatively new to composites. When I have more time, I will continue with my other ideas and saved stock images.

For those of you who have been following the blog, you know it's time to take a trip around the circle and enjoy other interpretations of the theme.  This week start the circle with Cynthia Wood of Pets We Love Photography,  serving Toronto and Collingwood, Ontario.

Enjoy! 

There's an old saying that "rules were made to be broken."  There are a host of rules or guidelines in photography.  They are there to help photographers compose an image in the best way possible.  Some we have covered in this very blog circle in the past.

Rule of thirds, leading lines, framing, patterns, balance, and negative space are just some of the guidelines used to compose a great image.  But how do you know when to "break" a rule on purpose? It's not always easy.

Maybe a good way to start is by saying that every photographer has their own style and vision.  I admire many pet photographers who use different techniques to achieve their imagery.  For instance, wide angle distortion has become popular in pet photography. So much so, you see it everywhere, and used by many. Yet, years ago, wide angle distortion was avoided for portrait work.  Whimsical doggy faces with large noses are some of the things that make me smile.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

We, as photographers, sometimes have to decide what looks best for a certain photo and what tells the best story.  As a pet photographer, I can tell you that we may find ourselves, at times, in not so great conditions (a wet field where we thought it would be dry, a rainy day when the forecast was sunny, etc.).  At those times, whether it be through post-processing or the images as they are taken, we are constantly working to give the client the best images possible for any given situation.

While I try to steadfastly follow the rules where my clients are concerned, I do enjoy doing things a little differently with my own pets.  For this week, I picked a few rules to break for very specific reasons.  Let's see what you think.

Goodness gracious, it's Harry.  Like we haven't seen him before.  He really wants me to let him in the house and can't for the life of him figure out why I am taking his picture instead.

The usual guideline is to try to have the subject facing the middle in a situation like this, or to have enough space beyond Harry's face to suggest he is going somewhere.  But if I had done that with this image, and we already know Harry wants to go IN and not SOMEWHERE, the image would not have told the correct story.  So I cropped the photo to show that Harry wants in that door.

Same kitty.  Now frustrated that I am still with the camera and not letting him in.  See that scowl.  It's a very real thing. This time I put Harry in the center of the photo (which, under the guidelines, is not usually desirable).  Normally I would try for a photo where he might be more to the left of this image, with more open space to the right of the image.  But I learned a few things while photographing Harry...(a) he's put on a little weight over the Winter months; (b) my front door needs to be painted; and (c) there's too many things on my front porch for photos (flower pots, stone bunnies for Easter, etc.).

If I had moved Harry more to the left of this image and opened up the right, the focus on him would have been lost.  It's also why I turned the photo black and white (and added a little bit of grunge to kitty)--to take the focus away from any color and just put it all on Harry.

Now below is something I almost NEVER do.

I don't tilt my camera at odd angles, because I am OCD about straight horizons.  The guideline people would really love me.  This is Moe, enjoying one of the first really sunny and warm days we have had since the Winter.  I know his expression doesn't suggest he is hanging on for dear life because someone tipped the earth and he is going to slide off, but for a while I could not even bring myself to edit this photo, because I had to turn my head completely sideways to be happy.

Now that I have looked at it for a while, it has kind of grown on me. (Okay, not really.)  This type of angled photography is very popular among wedding photographers.  I have seen some great images of brides throwing their bouquet in an angled photograph.  But I think I will stick to straight horizons.

See...isn't this better?  Moe has not changed his position at all.  I have.  With my camera. And all is right with the world.

To see what other rules have been broken, take a hop around the blog circle.  Start with BARKography by Kim Hollis in Charlotte, North Carolina, then work your way through the rest of the circle until you are once again back here.  As always, thanks for reading the blog, and to those who celebrate, Happy Easter!  

It seems that every time an Urban theme comes into my life, there is something going on to thwart my actually getting fresh photos. 

This past weekend I was visiting a suburban burg (really lovely place) where I had no time to explore because I was studying and signed up to take my Certified Professional Photography exam.  Staying in a hotel through one and one half days of downpours and cold, brisk winds, plus blowing out your eyeballs reading a computerized study guide, were the only things on the menu.  I did manage to sneak in one 40 minute walk after the rain broke on the second evening.  I am happy to report that I passed the exam.  It was all worth it.

Arriving home late Sunday, I waited for weather cooperation.  Tuesday seemed to be the day.  Sun and warmth showed up bigtime. I had a plan to visit an Urban park and take some photos from a walkway overlooking the buildings.  Unfortunately, there were about 1000 people there.  See, this is what happens when you live in Northeastern Pennsylvania and you have a quota of sunny days.  EVERYONE is out when they occur.  Thwarted again, but at least Billie got a walk.

So I come to you downtrodden.  A forlorn photographer who didn't want to experience 300 photo bombers in her dog photo at the golden hour.  The good news is, even though it was getting dark, I found a number of new places on my drive home that I can do some urban sessions.  I plan on going out at a later date to take some preliminary photos with one of our dogs to see how they will work out for client photo shoots.  I try to find a bright spot in all things.

In the meantime, I pulled an image from my archive.  Well two images.  The first is taken at the area Plow and Hearth store.  An adoption event (the store is great about showing off shelter animals), people were lining up to see the pups and kitties looking for new homes.  This has always been a favorite image of mine from that event. 

I think the sidewalk pavement, hint of a door, and foot line has an urban feel to it.  I eventually made this into a shelter poster that read "Every night we dream that people are lining up to adopt us.  Please make our dreams come true."  This pup was adopted.

Oh, that second image?  This pup played an integral role greeting visitors at the door of the Plow and Hearth on that day.

Best door stop I have ever seen.

She-who-must-go-urban-again is now handing you off to photographers whom, I am sure, will get you there.  I am going back to the walkway on a rainy day. No one will be there.

Start your urban ride with St. Cloud & Central MN dog photographer, Cahlean Klenke, of  About A Dog Photography. Enjoy the circle.  See you next week!