The Dog That Changed Colour.

I had a fun time on Faith's photo shoot.  Penny (Faith's owner) and I went for a walk to a golf course local to Faith's home in Timperley, Cheshire, where Faith delighted in paddling and splashing in every puddle (and the puddles were quite large) and rolling in every muddy patch.  She started out as a yellow lab, but within 10 mins was distinctly brown, causing some amusement to the passing golfers.

Sorry Penny!

You can find Faith on Twitter and Facebook

Retired Guide Dog - Warrington

Today I was delighted to meet Neil and his yellow lab x golden retriever, Leighton.  I was welcomed very warmly by them both into Neil's home in Warrington.  It's just the two of them at home now, and they are totally devoted to each other.

Leighton was initially a little camera shy, and jumped up from his spot every time the shutter was released - bringing me one of his toys and smearing his nose on my camera lens!  However, after about 20 minutes of shooting, Leighton could hardly keep his eyes open and I did come away with quite a few shots of him snoozing :-)

Neil was very generous with his time and stories - one of which was that of Leighton eating £90 in cash belonging to his previous (blind) owner. Ooops!  Not wishing to stereotype, but that's Labradors for you!

Latest (and Last!) Project for BA Photography

So, in about 3 months I should have completed my BA (Hons) in photography!  I have decided to keep this blog going during my final major project, which is producing a series of portraits of retired guide dogs.  I have been photographing dogs as part of my coursework for quite a while now, and wanted to explore an older group of dogs.  What happens to guide dogs when they retire?  Who do they live with and what do they enjoy doing in their retirement?

My first shoot took place at the Guide Dog Training Centre in Atherton, where I met Helen and Lesley, and their respective retired dogs, Nash and Nixon.  It was a cold but bright day, and so I shot both outside in an agility area, and indoors in the training arena which is like a daylight studio, with large ceiling windows -perfect!

8 year old Nash was happy to oblige, and happily ran through the agility course.  13 year old Nixon was a little more choosy, and demanded a rider of teddy bears, bones, and head scratching ! ;-)

Both dogs were clearly devoted to their owners, so thanks to Helen and Lesley for convincing the dogs to co-operate!

Nash

Nixon

Editing and Post- Production

I realise that this post is a bit out of sync, as it comes after the printing post...

I used Lightroom for the majority of my editing and post processing.  I has taken me a while to get used to it, but I have found that it has speeded up my workflow.

I made all of my main adjustments in Lightroom, and then used Photoshop to format my book pages.

Tools I use frequently in Lightroom are the gradient tool and adjustment brush,  so I have started to create custom presets for these tools.

I have found the following websites helpful in teaching lightroom:  Adobe TV,

http://tv.adobe.com/show/the-complete-picture-with-julieanne-kost/

and Creative Live

http://www.creativelive.com/

Creative Live courses are free if you watch them as they are being broadcast live, and they are really informative.

Book Production

My Hahnemuhle fine art inkjet album arrived.  Printing it is turning out to be more time consuming than I had anticipated.  I have spent a long time researching ICC profiles for various papers/printers, and how to soft proof.  When I actually came to download the specific profile I needed, I became slightly unstuck as Hahnemuhle only provide the paper profiles for professional standard Canon inkjet printers.  Mine is a Canon Pixma MP560.
This led me back to the internet to search on forums/discussions for any other users who had come across a similar issue.  The consensus was, to use the setting "Matt Photo Paper", in absence of the correct specific profile.

I had already created a "mock-up" book, to help me with layout and ordering, I then did some test prints of my pages onto plain paper to make sure that the formatting looked OK and that I could print onto 2 sides correctly.

I think the prints look ok using the Matte paper setting, and the colours have been accurately reproduced.

Here are the settings I used:

A4 (borderless)
Matte photo paper
RIGHT HAND PAGES - need reverse orientation checking in "Layout" section of printer dialogue.  This needs to be unchecked when printing the Left pages.

Printing the individual pages

                                                           drying the prints

mock-up of book

The book is assembled with brass screws, and so will assemble later when the prints have had time to settle.

Book making

Over the last few weeks I have been doing fairly extensive research into book making. If I had had enough time, I probably would have gone with a Blurb, or Bob books book as these are well known and respected companies, whose results come out well in several reviews. However, as the turnaround time is 7-11 days for these services , it wasn't going to work for this particular project. I do have presentation methods already at home, (cardboard portfolio box with archival sleeves, leather "book" portfolio, but I just feel that this series is best suited to a book format. I carried on my investigations, looking at (amongst other things), DS colour labs, and independent book binding services. DS have a quick turnaround of 1-5 days, but when I started the process of making a book, I encountered issues:- the advanced software that they ask you to download is for pc only, which seems crazy to me, as so many photographers are mac users.  Another issue I encountered on the DS site was lack of choice available.  For instance, they advertise books 12" x 16" in a choice of colours, but when you actually come to order the book, they only have white available.

I extended my research into self-print inkjet fine art albums, and decided that I would try this method.  I feel that I am taking a risk with this, as the albums are pretty expensive,
Hahnemuhle inkjet album


I have purchased the Hahnemuhle book shown, so will print the images and then assemble the book.  I have made books before in previous modules so am comfortable with page layout, gutter allowances etc.

This will be a good opportunity to try this method out, with the potential of using it again in my final project next year.

Katie

This was an enjoyable shoot with Katie and her dog, Alfie.  Alfie is a sweet natured and sensitive yorkshire terrier, and he was a perfect model, as was Katie.  She was easy to direct, had a very natural look, and was comfortable in front of the camera.  I started with OCF, and then moved to natural light, to give me plenty of images from which to choose.


'


Contacts

a successful shoot which gave me lots of choice of images to use.