It's Wednesday, So There Must Be Tennis Ball Action

After another bike ride during which we had a headwind for 90% of the ride (which is a little amazing, as we ride a loop, but the winds swirl around the mountains.... or the Anemoi hate us....) it was tennis ball time for the girls.  In keeping with the reading I have been doing, I am still trying to shoot 'with intention'.  Or at least I try to have a focus.  Fr'instance, at 4:15pm, about a third of the yard is covered in shadows, and I'm trying to see if I can find settings that let me get sharp photos, but aren't wildly light or wildly dark.  I haven't really been successful yet, but I'm going to keep at it.  I am really trying to think about natural light, as I am anticipating taking an online pet photography class in October (four weeks of instruction, assignments and instructor critique) and two of the four weeks focus on using natural light.  So I figured it might be a good idea to think about what I'm shooting and how I'm shooting it before the class starts!

Not that any of my Thinking of Deep Thoughts affects the tennis ball action (and a good thing, or I'd have a riot on my hands!).

Another case of blogger lightening the photo for me.  Fi was a little light in the actual photo, but not quite as light as she appears here.

This one isn't bad.  The color is a little funky, but I haven't quite figured out what to do about that.  (The four week class also provides free Photoshop/Lightroom instruction, which might help me solve my color problem.)

Another photo pre-lightened by blogger.  But the action is sharp and while Abby is a little light, nothing is overly light or dark.

Not optimal lighting here, but the photo cracks me up.

In addition to zoomies, there were Big Leaps!

Not only did Abby miss the ball, but Fi is giving her the "What the...?!?" look.

Not really in focus, but she's got nice ear flappage (and you can see the length of the afternoon shadows...).

Fi didn't want to be left out of the leaping action!

And, of course, there was much chasing of tennis balls.

And I tried taking some portraits in various degrees of shade.  I'm not 100% happy with any of these, but they aren't terrible, either.  Just little things I'd re-do on each one.

In full shade.  Even with a little tweaking the color of the photo is a little 'cool' but I guess I should expect that in the shade!

Given that most of Fi is in the shade, with just some sun on her snooter, this came out pretty well. The color is a little flat, but I really like the bokeh (I think the aperture was f/4).

This didn't come out quite as planned; I clearly have more to learn about photographing in mixed light/shadows

For a full-shadow shot this didn't come out too badly.  I could have played around with the aperture a bit more, but since Abby was hovering, trying to steal Fi's tennis ball, I didn't have much time to adjust my settings!

Day 246/365.