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My first opinion on the down side in the first picture is, two things; distracting items, and maybe I needed to be down a little lower to the puppies level’s, tip #4.
Yeah, I’m afraid you’re right. You must try to keep any distracting objects form the puppies, especially around their faces. As you can see in your first picture, the puppy on the left has both an eye and part of the nose hidden by a stick, and the second and third puppies have their noses hidden. It’s harder to see the puppies’ expressions when part of their faces are covered up …
And like you said, shooting at the puppies’ eye level would have been great.Also, although I am not a puppy photographer, I would suggest to keep fences or anything that relates to fences away from puppies. Fences bring the idea of restriction, and in a photo, you want to show free, playful little puppies. Just my opinion though, from a non-puppy photographer point of view.
Thanks for the input, @mr-quebec. I did actually take some pictures of a puppy today outside of the fence, but with no help unlike tip #2 said to do. That was a little challenging though, because all the puppy wanted to do is climb all over me or run the other direction of where I tried setting him up! 🙂 I think this next time though, I’ll get one of my brothers, who hopefully will be interested in doing it, to come out with me and help pose the puppy correctly! 🙂
Here are a couple of pictures that I took, which were a little more difficult to take with holding the puppy and taking the picture at the same time!! 🙂- This reply was modified 55 years ago by .
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That first shots of the cow investigating the puppies is simply adorable!
Yes, shooting lots of pictures is important to getting a good one in all the movement and myriad of expressions! But don’t feel like you have to store all of them on your hard drive. I’m hard on myself in deleting duplicates and the ones that are obviously bad. Then I flag the ones that I think I can use and edit them to share. I leave the rest as they are in case I decided to come back to them later for whatever reason. If I shoot a lot, I’m deleting a lot. 🙂
- This reply was modified 55 years ago by .
Very nice! I also really liked the first shot of the cow checking out the pups! It’s a really cute idea, it just needs a little help on the “distracting elements”. 🙂
The photos of the puppy sniffing the flowers are cute too! Sometimes it’s nice to get up close, instead of all full-body shots! I noticed on the second one though that the puppy is not in focus. (See the last part of TIP #11)
I took about 60 to 70 pictures!! I got only a few “okay” ones! Kind of like you said in tip #6, “You have to take a lot of pictures to get one good picture!!”…I found that out!
Yep, almost every “pro” that I know takes lots of pictures. Why do you think Canon’s new 1D X II can take 16 pictures every second? 🙂 I just got a new macro lens, and it’s not at all uncommon for me to take a GB or more worth of RAW photos in one half-hour shoot. But it’s worth it when I get a picture like this:
all the puppy wanted to do is climb all over me or run the other direction of where I tried setting him up! 🙁
Welcome to the joys of puppy photography! 🙂 (Don’t forget TIP #1!)
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Actually, @jamesstaddon, I do the same thing of deleting pictures and try only to keep the clear pics, or the neat or cute ones in spite of the blur! Sometimes I get my mind set to, “Would I develop this?” 🙂
Our cow really likes company, so he gets curious sometimes too… which hasn’t always been good. 🙁
Yes, @buddingphotographer, the pictures really need help in a few areas. I normally see the problem after being out there, and when I’m working on editing, I don’t really feel like going out and trying to get them all back to how they were standing, ect!! With speaking of the distracting elements, I also wouldn’t trust the cow being very gentle if he were with the puppies or vice versa, if you keep in mind getting the distracting things out of the way.
I figured you would see the blur in picture #2. I think the focus area is on the ear! Again, it was a little different holding the puppy and trying to angle my camera in the right direction without looking into the view finder where it was aiming!
Here’s another try.Attachments:
Very nice! That’s the kind of shot I look for when photographing puppies!
The puppy has a nice expression, it’s eyes are nice and sharp, the background has some nice blur to it, and there’s no major “clutter” in the picture. Simple is better in this case! 🙂 The only thing that seems a little distracting is the patch of yellow flowers in the background. It is nice to have some color, but it’s bright enough that your eyes are drawn to it instead of the puppy!
Just for fun, I popped the photo into Lightroom, and tried selectively de-saturating the yellow flowers just a tad. I used an Adjustment Brush with Saturation dialed down to
-20and Highlights down to-50. I don’t know how much difference it actually makes, but at least those flowers don’t POP out at you quite as much! 🙂(I also sharpened the picture some to make the puppy’s fur really stand out)
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Now that you mention the patch of flowers being a little too bright, I do remember that every time I look at the picture, I look at the puppy first, since it’s closer, then the flowers because they’re brighter!
I don’t think I have to worry about having you pop it into Lightroom for me. I see you have no problem getting pictures into Lightroom and fixing them up really quick! For me, it would take awhile! I’m glad you think of it as “Fun.” I’m definitely not as practiced up as you are!! It would be fun to learn again, now that I’m a little more familiar with it. 🙂Yeah, up to about 6 weeks old, puppies are pretty slow, as far as running away from you. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that they just sit still for you. Oh no! 🙂
I’m sure they don’t. But at least they aren’t running at 15mph! We recently did a photo shoot with our 1-day-old calf, Coffee Crisp. It wasn’t easy to focus fast enough!
Cats are a little easier, at least the grown ones (see photo 1). Kittens can be more challenging. Photo 2 is our mother cat 11 months ago. I’m looking forward to photographing her kittens!
And what’s it like shooting livestock? I was asked a while back to photograph someone’s livestock. The job never materialized, but it sure would be good to be prepared with tips from someone with at least more experience…
I’m no expert on livestock photography, but here are a few things I might suggest… I started another thread, however, so as not to mix up livestock with puppies too much.
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I love taking pictures of cats! My cat poses a lot for me! That will be fun to see the kitten pictures, Frazer Family!
I took some more puppy pictures, that you can look at here: http://www.windyknollgoldens.com/. Which I felt some pictures weren’t the greatest, but most customers wouldn’t notice! My brother has taken most of the puppy pictures on the blog, or his wife, but since we have the puppies at our home, I have needed to get pictures to keep their website updated, so I’m definitely taking advantage of that! They all will be sold beginning of July, so I only have a little time left! :-{I don’t think I have to worry about having you pop it into Lightroom for me. I see you have no problem getting pictures into Lightroom and fixing them up really quick! For me, it would take awhile! I’m glad you think of it as “Fun.” I’m definitely not as practiced up as you are!! It would be fun to learn again, now that I’m a little more familiar with it. 🙂
I’m happy to help you out, but I won’t always be around! 🙂 You should take some lessons on Lightroom. Maybe that would be a good idea for my next tutorial…
That’s really great, @hannahm, to see your pictures being used online! What benefit is it to learn photography if we never really end up using it? 🙂
I had another photo shoot today. I only have two more days before the nest is clean.:-{
So far, I have enjoyed every bit of it!!
Yes, @buddingphotographer, I should learn about Lightroom, but the only way I can, is to buy it first. But before I do that, I would like to get a better lens.Attachments:
And a few more!! I know the fence is in the way in the second one, but other than that, it’s pretty cute!
- This reply was modified 55 years ago by .
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