Stupid Human Tricks

I was reading an article on a photography website today that had some Lighting 101 exercises, and I thought it would be a good learning experience to work through the exercises.  The first exercise was really simple: recruit a model (or use a still life), and with the model always facing forward, start off with the flash and the camera both in front of the model, then keep the camera in front of the model while moving the light source 90 degrees.  Then, move the light source back to the original position and move the camera 90 degrees (where the flash was).  Really basic, but the concept is to get an understanding of how moving the light source and the camera around the model affects the composition.

I thought this would be something even I could handle.  And I had two perfectly willing models, so how tough could it be?

<insert diabolical laughter here>

Actually, it started off just fine.  Fi was a little reluctant to be part of the photo shoot (I spent $5 on a painting drop cloth, and Fi doesn't immediately warm up to new things - especially when they smell different, and they are hanging on the wall); which is okay - I don't want to burn her out, so I just let her wander.  Abby, on the other hand, can be convinced to do just about anything if you have the right treats.  I had pretty good treats, and I was able to get the initial shot, with her mostly looking at the camera, even if her nose was in focus and her eyes not so much....

Easy peasy.  Next, I just had to move the light source... And it all went downhill from there.  Fi smelled the tasty treats and decided that the treats might be worth getting near the drop cloth, so she started circling.  But I thought I might be able to at least get a shot with the light at a 90 degree angle.

Except that my model is not a still life. And she's got a variable length attention span that ranges from a nano-second to only slightly longer than a nano-second.  So looking in the same direction for any amount of time might have been asking a bit much....

And then Fi decided that the treats really were good, and that maybe she'd like to get in on the action.

And at this point, I learned the most important lesson about photographing dogs: plans for getting specific shots should probably be discarded the minute you actually see the dog(s).

So, I tossed out my plan, and was happy any time I could manage to actually get a dog (either dog, both dogs) to sit somewhere in the range of flash.

Or somedoggies decided lying down was okay, too....

Not that all the photos exactly worked out; somedoggie was a spotlight hog...

So even though my great plan to put a simple lesson didn't exactly work out, many treats were distributed, photos were taken, and fun was had.  And it was yet more proof that my dogs have me very well trained.  And I'm good with that!

Day 77//365.