January Assignment: Photographing your doodle indoors.

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

It's cold outside. So it's a great month to focus on indoor shooting.

For this assignment I'm not going to request that you use a flash or any fancy lighting. Natural light should be fine. We can take the principles for shooting outdoors inside. We will need to probably up the iso on our cameras (most modern cameras handle it pretty well). 

Tips and ideas:

Look for the light: place your dog near a window or a lamp. Window light is awesome and can be quite dramatic. Have your dog looking towards the light works really well.

Pay attention to your backgrounds: Clutter can be your enemy (I know it's mine.) Often I will find my self running around and clearing items that are distracting in the picture. Another way to remove it is to shoot with very shallow DOF. 

Find things in your house that you can use as backdrops, or props (Laurie is the queen of props!)

Capture those everyday moments or those cute little things about your dog that you will cherish forever. The most important part of all of this.

Have fun. Can't wait to see what you all come back with.

Oh, very important, if you are shooting indoors with tungsten light or any other artificial light source pay careful attention to your white balance. 

[Suzanne & Jack]

That expression is priceless!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Suzanne!

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

Love that expression! How did you get that?

It would be great if you could get the quilt to fill the entire background and maybe square to the camera. Just a side note as we all know what a nit pick I am.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

That is one of my smallest quilts, but I am glad you said that. I have been messing around with whether to fill the whole background or leave in a little gray. I have two versions for Fudge. My lighting stinks. I just can't get it right. Today, I took this one and had a flash on the floor behind Fudge to illuminate the quilt and it just looks blah to me. I am hoping John can help me this weekend, because getting this hat to stay on her head while I get in position is not easy. 

Vern was actually yawning and I just clicked. I had to fix his one eye, but other than that, he looked like this. LOL Of course, I could never repeat this expression. 

[F, Calla & Luca]

I really like this. Fudge looks so stylish!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, F!

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

Love the hat and pose. I love the slightly cocked angle of the hat. Fudge looks so debonair.

I prefer the bottom one posted because of the crop and composition. It's pretty darn perfect. I don't mind the gray at the bottom for this one, but maybe fill the quilt horizontally.

If you are to move forward with this idea, I couple things that pop out. The lighting on Fudge is pretty darn perfect.. But the quilt doesn't show so good. Not sure the quilt is adding in this example. I like the color connection with the quilt.

I don't have a verifiable recommendation but only thoughts. My first is that the quilt is out of focus, but not totally out of focus. And not all that well lit. I'm in the camp of one or the other for a background, either push her against the background and make everything in focus or pull her away and throw the background totally out. Or get rid of the quilt.

An approach I might consider if you are thinking about making the quilt an integral part of the photo. I might go more flat and put Fudge right up against the quilt and create a strong shadow so she separates from her background and both her and the quilt are in focus. Again, just thoughts, but I think it would work. Lighting wise, I would have to experiment. I think having an overall light to the scene and having a bit of a spotlight on her to highlight her and create a strong shadow against the background.

Did this go over too many heads? Probably would go over mine if I weren't the person writing this.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, Nancy. I am trying to do a quilt series, thus the quilts. I want the quilt to show, so I will try your idea tomorrow and put her closer to the quilt. It seems l just have problems lighting the background, period. I can't get it right. I never like what I do. LOL I actually prefer the tighter crop, so I appreciate your view on this one. I almost feel like I need three lights to get this right. Back to the drawing board and I will let you know what I come up with. Thanks for helping me!!

[F, Calla & Luca]

Kudos to you Laurie. You work so hard on these assignments.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Thanks, F :)

[Nancy and Georgia Brown]

You may need 3 lights. Do you have 3 lights?  It might be best to take this to an email conversation. I do have an idea that might work. I need to find some lighting examples on the Internet for inspiration.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Yes, we have 3 lights. Ok, I will check my email. Thanks.