benjamin

Benjamin is a doll.

The shoot started off with a stroll in the park for him to run off some energy and also to do his business on the grass instead of on the backdrop. A pee stain would be cumbersome to clone out.

Tested out the thunder gray, but moved back to the failed safe white near the end of the shoot.

Enjoy!

cookie the hyperactive pug

Had a photo session with my friend's pug this weekend. Continuing to build my books on pet portraits.

This time I went to his place to set up the studio so I can gage how much time I needed and what kind of things I should look out for. I also timed myself to see how much I can get in with a 1-1.5 hour session. Lastly, testing out the new monster.

Some notable things:

• space is limited and not everyone will have a living room in their home to set up the backdrop system and also for me to use a long lens
• the dog needs breaks
• don't throw a toy onto the backdrop since the dog will run after it
• the underside of the seamless paper can be used
• doing the shoot indoors really keeps the backdrop clean

More of the set and setup shots to come.

Black Eye Dogs

A lot of dogs have very dark fur around their eyes. They show up as two complete black holes sometimes. I had this problem with a recent shoot with Buddy.

I shot in RAW and recovered some detail in the eyes with the Adjustment Brush tool in Camera Raw. This can be done in Photoshop with masking as well.

To bring more detail to the eyes, pay attention to get more catch light from the eyes. In this case, I actually went to emphasize the catch light. It makes the dog look smarter! It's these subtle changes that make significant improvements to the results.


Before


After

Gus and Buddy

I am building my books on pet portraits. What I am trying to achieve is a clean studio look. My goal is to capture these pets as if they are fashion models.

I may end up shooting some outdoor shots in the future, but right now I'd like to focus my efforts into studio type portraits...pets only though. I am still a big fan of on location shoots for humans.

So using my newly assembled studio, my first shoot was of Buddy the mini schnauzer and Gus the english bulldog. I am told the coloured set shows better.

It was a challenge, but both dogs were relatively cooperative. I won't be shooting two dogs together next time though. I also found out that a white backdrop is a disposable item when doing pets.

I will need to figure out if I can set up my studio indoors in a smaller space now that winter is closing in quick. Perhaps I should practice setting up on location to the owners house next time.

These are the two that I enlarged to 12x18 prints. They turned out nicely for what they cost.