Dog Photography Tips on Outdoor Portraits Part 1
By KRae Merk | June 16, 2010
I’m an outdoor dog photographer. Plain and simple, I love the outdoor lighting, I love the attitude outdoors, I love everything about outdoor photography. Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t photograph a dog indoors, I just prefer outdoors. Especially for portraits. Now, most portraits consist of dogs in front of sometimes cheesy backgrounds and sometimes they look really bad, and sometimes they look really good. (I will be giving dog photography tips on indoor portraits soon)
In this photo, I did place Candy in that position in front of the windmill, but her looking off to the side was her own idea. I love “candid” looking portraits especially if they have an interesting background. Like for instance the windmill. But I’ve seen and photographed dogs on all kinds of different backgrounds. Natural backgrounds look the best to me as long as they don’t overpower the subject. This is where I use the Aperture Priority mode on my camera and for blurred backgrounds I set it on 5.6 or lower.
In the photo above, I had the aperture dialed up to like 8.0 because I was shooting with my 70-300 VR lens (as usual) since I wanted the full windmill in the photo I had to back off about 50-60 feet because I was using a telephoto lens. Now this photo isn’t the typical close up of a dogs face, but it paints a perfect picture of the owner and dogs’ personality in the photo.
The photo above was a candid photo, I just looked up and Wolfe was standing there in perfect line with the windmill and all I did was raise my camera and snapped the shot. A dog photography tip for candid photos; keep your eyes open and not chiming about the photos you see in the LCD screen. You can chim about the photos all you want later on the computer.
This photo was taken by my mom. That’s me and my best friend Candy. The dog photography tip I want to point out about this photo is that it looks like me and Candy are in a forest when in reality, I’m sitting on a dirt pile covered with brush and plants with a tree on top in my backyard. So keep your eyes open for dirt piles and trees with weeds around them. 
Also, another dog photography tip for dog and people portraits; makes sure the person is wearing the opposite color clothes to the dogs coat. That tip comes from my AKC show days; I’d spend hours shopping for the right color suit for the dogs I was showing.
Topics: Blog | 1 Comment »
Ever Seen a Cat Dressed Up?
By KRae Merk | June 14, 2010
If you don’t even crack a smile at this video, you have a heart of stone. 
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Photo Friday – The Strong and the Weak
By KRae Merk | June 11, 2010
The other day I was out in the yard picture takin’ around and I saw these two flowers; one was bent over and the other was standing up tall. And I was, for some crazy reason, reminded of Life. And I remembered a saying said by someone whose name escapes me, “There are only two kinds of people in the world; the Strong and the Weak.”
This photo reminded me of that. Only for these flowers, if you are strong, you live. If you are weak, you die.
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Dog Photography Tips for Cats
By KRae Merk | June 9, 2010
I did a post awhile back on dog photography tips for cats but since I’ve been getting more and more photos of my cat Buford lately, I decided to post a dog photography tips for cats.
Tip #1. The cat has to be in a photographing mood. If you try to photograph a cat when he’s mad or upset, it’s a recipe for getting scratched, best way to photograph a mad cat is with a telephoto lens.
Tip #2. To get original photos of cats, I like waiting till they do something really funny. Such as, cleaning their personal body parts, rolling on their backs, weird facial expressions, bug eyes, and so on.
Tip #3. On cat portraits, it’s kinda hard to get an original portrait of a cat. Mostly cat portraits consist of evil eyes, close ups of their faces, relaxing on the couch or window sill, so I decided to give it a different twist. What I did in the photo below was I placed the cat, Inky, on the window sill, petted her and convinced her to stay on the sill, (I had already decided to photograph her on a window that faced west and it was sunset at the time) then I set up my flash on the sill aimed at her, (some cats will freak at the flash unit so you might want to familiarize them with the flash before hand) then I shot the picture and the way the sun was setting made a window screen pattern on her, now the trick is not to overpower the natural lighting with the flash to ruin that cool screen effect.
Tip #4. Let a cat be a cat. I always like an animal doing what an animal does, no exception with cats
Well, that all the dog photography tips on cats for right now!
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Candy at the Movies
By KRae Merk | June 7, 2010
This is a video of Candy watching “Trail of the Pink Panther” with me during the part where a Border Collie is herding the housekeeper around the house. Sorry for the poor lighting.
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Photo Friday – The Chase is on MUSTANG!!
By KRae Merk | June 4, 2010
Ok, there were several factors that inspired me to make this photo;
#1. I wanted a new desktop background, and despite the fact that I have hundreds of photos to pic for a desktop, I like having a photo that doesn’t have anything to do with dog photography for my desktop, because I see dog photography everyday and I need a mind break
#2. To make this image, it took quite a bit of Photoshop work and I wanted to test my Photoshop skills plus use a few new tricks I learned from Photoshop User magazine
#3. I am a total mustang FREAK! I love everything mustang, from the 4-legged Mustangs that are tougher than shoe leather, to the 4-wheeled Mustangs that peel rubber, to the flying Mustangs that fired 6, 50cals during World War 2
#4. And I just finished what I think now is my favorite book, called The Chase by Clive Cussler. Even though Mustangs aren’t mentioned in the book, the book is filled with incredible, adrenalin pumping chases that reminded me of the dogfights the P-51 Mustang was in during World War 2, and of car chases I’ve seen in movies, plus outlaw-sheriff horseback chases back in the Old West.
So that is what inspired me to make this photo. (and it is on my desktop by the way)
If you would like to see a bigger preview, click HERE
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Dog Photography Tips on Shadow Games
By KRae Merk | June 2, 2010
I guess my inspiration on shadow pictures started when I asked my print/frame guy about a series of photos that were framed in his display room in his print shop, the framed photo was about 2½ feet wide and a foot tall and it was 5 pictures of a shadow on a cap rock and the caption under it was Dancing Shadows. After that I always have liked photos of shadows, I guess the reason why is they are so cool and different. (the same with reflections)
A dog photography tip on shadows is using the live view option on your camera so you can hold the camera away from you, like waist high, and take a photo of your shadow and by holding it waist high or away from you it gives the photo a different twist.
Now this photo I took a couple years ago and it has always been my favorite. What I did was climb up on the corral fence, put the camera in my lap and aim in the general direction of my shadow, look toward the side to show my profile, and shoot the picture. Now, shooting in the general direction of the intended subject, you’re going to miss it a few times till you get right unless you use the live view option.
Now another dog photography tip is setting your camera’s focus point on auto so the camera doesn’t pin-point a particular focus point.
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
4-Legged London Bridge
By KRae Merk | May 31, 2010
Awhile back I got the most entertaining collection of shots in sequence; Charlie walking under Wolfe.
Maybe its not the most funny photos, but I think its very entertaining. By the way, this week’s dog photography tips is about shadow games. So stayed tuned for some interesting shadow techniques.
Topics: Blog | No Comments »
Photo Friday – Truck Stop Variations
By KRae Merk | May 28, 2010
As you can see in this photo, I got a little carried away with the liquefier tool in Photoshop. All I did was take the short exposure picture of the truck stop and start playing around with the liquefier tool till I created a Haunted Truck Stop with ghosts haunting the skies.
I was just plain board when I made this photo, I got to playing around with the filters in CS4 and created this one, which I really love because it looks like an Old West type of photo, but the fact that there are cars in it, kinda ruin the Old West look, I never got around to cloning them out.
Oh, a dog photography tip for Photoshop filters, I love fiddling around with filters when I’m board. And I come up with some pretty good stuff when I’m board. I’ve never really been a true Photoshop geek, but I do use it quite often, but as far as totally recreating a image to a totally new one and combining several images into one, I’ve never really gotten into that side of Photoshop, I’m mostly a camera person. (meaning I like getting a image right in the camera, rather than spending 4-5 hours trying to fix it later in Photoshop)
Topics: Blog | 2 Comments »
Dog Photography Tips on Lightroom
By KRae Merk | May 26, 2010
I’ve had to learn the hard way to always check your WHIMES;
W; White Balance Check
H; Highlight warning turned on
I; ISO check
M; Mode Check
E; Exposure Compensation check
S; Size check
Scott Kelby created the WHIMS check, I added the “E” because I shot our entire family Christmas weekend get-a-way with my exposure compensation dialed down to –2.0, I felt sick when I figured out what I did. (Blond me, I didn’t even follow my own dog photography tips) thankfully, I had just gotten Lightroom 2 a few weeks before so I was able to save some of my pictures. Here are a few examples of what Lightroom can do with the pictures I screwed up on;
Before;
After;
Before;
After;
Before;
After;
Before;
After;
What I did in Lightroom 2;
- Import the photos and add them to their own collection
- Highlight the photo and go over to Develop
- Correct the white balance to auto correct and adjust the temperature sliders to the desired white balance
- Adjust the exposure to the bright side to the desired lightness
- Increase the recovery slider to offset the exposure brightness
- Slide the fill light slider over to almost full strength
- Adjust the brightness and contrast sliders slightly to compensate for the fill light hue
- Increase the clarity slider over about halfway
- Increase the vibrance and saturation sliders to bring back the color drained by the other sliders that were brightening up the photo
That is approximately what I did in Lightroom 2; of course I change it up slightly for each different photo.
Now, one of my leading dog photography tips is; Get is right in the camera. Because, I’ve always liked the look of a picture fresh out of the camera, not Photoshop or Lightroom. Now, that doesn’t mean I won’t play around in Photoshop or Lightroom, I just proved that above.
Topics: Blog | 2 Comments »