​     Pic Your Pup      l     7 Ideas for Photographing Your Dog   l    Jim Austin Jimages.com

1 Game Time: Catch her at Play
2 All Eyes: Get Closer
3 Go High, Go Low: Choose a Better Angle
4 Story: Tell a Tail in Just One Shot
5 Emotion: Show How Others Feel about Him
6 Water Everywhere: Get Them Wet
7 Contrast: Try Light and Dark Backgrounds

​With my basenji Shanti leading the way, I'll share seven ideas you can use to take fun photos of your dogs. 

ONE: Game Time
One of my dog's favorite games is catch the ol' tennis ball. For this portrait of her wearing her life jacket, I threw the ball high many times, and tried to release the shutter just before the tennis ball came into the frame. 

​TWO: All Eyes
Most iPhones, iPhone Pro models, mirrorless cameras and large sensor cameras have close-up or macro settings. For instance, the macro mode may look like a flower on your camera Mode Dial. Some cameras have 'macro' on the lens or Mode Dial. Try Macro shots of your dogs eyes by manually focusing your camera lens if possible. Turn the focusing ring on the lens to the closest focusing distance, then move to get closer to your dogs eyes. Or, use the macro setting on your camera phone or an inexpensive clip on lens for your iPhone 12. Getting close in works a lot better after a romp walk, or when your companion is a bit tired. Your dogs eyes are the window to their soul.

​THREE: Different Angles
Shanti, my basenji, is a hunting dog. She  adores chasing crabs in the sand. She not only hears them a couple feet down, but can smell them when she get close by digging furiously with both paws through soft sand. It was fun to lie on the beach and catch her expression as she was joyously digging crabs. My point: for dog action pictures, try low and high angles to catch your pup doing something they love.

​FOUR: Tell The Story
A story and a moment make a picture stronger. Thinking of unusual camera positions, I often imagine my camera phone as a 3D spaceship. Instead of keeping it on the launch pad for a standard eye level landscape shot, I will 'fly' it around to get a 'feel' for how the light changes. The idea is to portrait your dog's character or a story idea. For this tender training moment between two best friends, the shadow knows. 

​FIVE: Emotion
We were walking our dog in Governor's Harbour, Eleuthera, Bahamas, just as church school let out for recess. Shanti, irresistibly, always runs to greet kids with a bright, clear, joyful enthusiasm. What is an dominant emotion your dog expresses clearly, and how can you photograph that feeling? 

SIX: Wet Dog, Dry Camera
Got a dog that loves the water? Go for it. For this shot, we tossed a homemade rope toy out into the water from our boat. Our Corgie loved the game and the two leggeds and four leggeds all got cooled off on a hot day. A water resistant camera is a useful tool to have when you get wet, and remember to dry your camera thoroughly after you shoot. Camera's are precision instruments and last longer if they avoid getting too wet or overheated.

​SEVEN: Contrasting Backgrounds
To help your dog stand out, choose a background that's the opposite tone of your dog. I like to use light toned backgrounds for my dark dog, and I choose darker backgrounds when I'm hired to photograph lighter dogs. Also, think about the shape of your dog against that background. BONUS IDEA: In closing, there are superb images of dogs photographed in black and white, so try a B/W setting on your camera and see what you think. 

Special Thanks: The author is grateful to Teresa J. Rhyne, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of The Dog Lived (and So Will I): A Memoir  and host of the Dogs and Books Facebook Page, for her inspiration to go deeper into helpful tips for dog lovers. 

My friend asked me to shoot his beloved Jeep. Sport model, 4wd, 6 cylinders, 242 cubic inches, naturally aspirated, Chili Pepper red. Their adventures together had spanned more than 20 years, two hundred thousand miles, and hours on America's open roads listening to songs on an in-dash radio cassette player. Now, he was letting go, selling his 1998 Cherokee and he wanted pictures for his sales ad. 

We planned the shoot for morning light in a local park. I promised him 15 images, and gave him a download link in advance. Then, I did some thinking. I thought about a Guy Tal webinar I saw, and ideas from Guy's book called More Than A Rock. A powerful idea reappeared: a photograph is both 'of' something, and, significantly, it is also 'about' something. I pondered what the experience was about for my friend.

After I photographed the images for his ad with my Nikon, I asked my friend a favor. I told him to sit in the driver's seat and hold his hands just above the wheel as I raised my Leica to my eye and made this photograph. It's titled "Letting Go."

Our photographs are "of" things, but they can also be "about" memories, emotions and our life experiences. And those of our friends.

Florida, Punta Gorda, Waterford Estates 2021: On May 8, the community development corporation cut down our "forever wild" area. As homeowners, we were told the purpose was to remove invasive species, so we watched a backhoe mow a 40 foot wide swath just behind our home. Like a sword of eternity, its sharp blade struck a gopher tortoise and I found its cleaved shell a few days later. My heart grieved. The next month, after hurricane Elsa's rain, plants grew up and a dragonfly perched next to the turtle's resting place. Seeing its wings shimmer the morning light, I thought of darkness and light, and our ever-changing living-dying moments. Things pass away. Others live on. Sometimes, death is the mother of beauty. 

A photograph can be about a single subject. When this subject is in the foreground, they way it compels a viewer depends on many elements. One of these is the background. A background that is in spatial and color synchrony with the foreground subject makes for a more effective picture.

​When we synchronize watches, we set them to the same time. A compelling photograph synchronizes foreground and background in time, and within the picture space. To achieve this synchrony with nature subjects, it helps to keep moving. Reposition the camera down, back, to the side and up. In other words, keep shifting the vantage point until subject and background synchronize. 

​    Observation. Light. Editing (OLE). To understand these three elements, let's borrow a metaphor from musical performance. Editing is like practicing a song multiple times to embody the timing and dynamics of the notes and phrasing. Light is like the melody. Observation is timing, rhythm and rest. OLE is getting all of it working together.  Editing photographs is not about making them perfect, but the process making them express your message. Light has been my sidekick since my childhood; I love thinking about its qualities, direction and moods. Editing and light flow smoothly for me. Observation takes concentration and dedicated practice. Sometimes our art comes not from arriving, but in being almost there. 
       To look deeply takes practice letting go of my rabbit mind. Easter Sunday came along to remind me to let it go and pay attention to this land. 

​______  

* Paper wasps have variable black facial patterns that signal their fighting ability. Wasps with more irregular black spots on their faces win more fights and are avoided by rivals, compared with wasps with fewer irregular black spots. These facial signals help reduce the costs of conflict, ensuring that wimpy wasps don’t waste time battling really strong rivals they are unlikely to beat. Like karate belt colors, facial patterns of wasps are like a biological “ornament” that shows the wasps fighting status. Wasps with elaborate ornaments are a greater social and sexual threat than those with less elaborate ornaments (Elizabeth Tibbetts, PhD, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ. of MIchigan).

“No matter that we may mount on stilts. We still must walk on our own legs.
And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.”
      de Montaigne

Becoming a teacher is a humbling experience. 

This Spring, I taught an online photo course via Zoom called Better Pictures with your Camera. Teaching ten students, I learned a lot. There were memorable moments. Trying to work the Zoom interface, and share examples and lessons, I stumbled. My students forgave me and gave me a lesson in forgiveness, Trying to learn from my failures, but not taking them too seriously, I got help from the students, and on the way my mistakes nudged us into laughter and seemed to generate a relaxed, harmonious group mood.

The students in the class were motivated adults. Each one sent in photographs for review and offered feedback and insightful comments to others about their pictures. When we covered photo editors like Photoshop and Lightroom,  one student told me about a editor new to me called Affinity. It is a Photoshop-like editor. I downloaded the free trial and got to work editing some images. The program was so well designed that I recommended it to a few other students in the class.

An insight came for me: assume that I will learn something interesting from each student about the world. Assume each student has something novel and interesting to offer. To join forces with students, a teacher can  be humble. I photograph daily. Each time I wander out with camera in hand, I am acutely aware that I know only a little about photography. There is an infinite sky above, and photography is a vast ocean of knowledge. There are large areas of photography of which I know little, so there's a lot of room to grow.

If we get caught up in being “great” as photographers or teachers, we lose the ability to be humble. Now, I'm not talking about self-abasement. Here, humility is used in the sense of being un-selved, liberated from a sense of self, and prideless. Listening to pro photographers, I've learned from some that they picked up a specific ability over their careers. Learning how to shoot famous people who are stars of web and screen, these pros mastered ways of letting go of their own stuff to get the results they wanted, and get better images they might not have planned. Why? They knew how to collaborate. For example, Annie Liebovitz, a remarkable photographer, learned to work closely with the stars she photographed on film, when she worked for Vanity Fair.

Liebovitz's humility did not mean she lacked personality, in fact, she was able to take a humble approach to her subject and be personable. She grasped how to work with movie stars and those who, like Diane Keaton, truly disliked being photographed. To work with strong personalities, Annie Liebovitz learned to let go of controlling the situation. Working with teams of support talent, many of her better images emerged in the context of this collaboration. Yes, it truly matters with whom you surround yourself.

THREE IDEAS for HUMILITY:

1. Ask questions. Be curious. Explore a specific theme.
2. Turn your questions into quests.
3. Make pictures with a spirit of wonder.

More on humility in photography: https://www.apogeephoto.com/photographers-mind-curiosity-humility/

I crawled in to a space inside the mangroves. Ensconced there, I sat on the sand, above low tide. Mangrove roots, and the mud they walked in, were one being. I could not tell if the tree roots went up or down. The spot was a quiet place to inhale the greenness. One could just be an silent animal, sitting within this short forest canopy.

An ibis flew overhead. Raccoon tracks trickled along the salty, muddy shoreline a few feet below me. A mockingbird landed, staring, from a perch on a mangrove branch nearby.  Mangrove crabs scuttled past.

This mangrove forest biome bordered a canal, one of a canal grid along this section of Florida's western shore. The sound of motorcycle engines came from a highway at one end of the forest, the roar dampened by the density of the trees. These red mangroves, one of 100 species called mangroves, protect the coast from erosion and storm surge. Their roots are home to many living creatures:  insects and spiders, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds. They are a source of blue carbon, carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by coastal ocean ecosystems. Here in Port Charlotte's estuary, red mangroves are abundant. Dotting their roots, red berries of Brazilian pepper tree punctuated the greenery. I sat, relaxed in deep shade, exploring how pictures of the berries might look.

Bits of plastic and fishing line strands had washed up on shore from being tossed into the canal. While we may talk about pleasure boats,  does their pleasure mean throwing trash into the common waters? We humans do so quickly, without a backward glance, and then we motor on. Possibly I am as guilty; I took photographs, but only packed out my own lunch wrappers, being too lazy to pack out any other trash. A question came to me; was it morally repugnant to photograph a wild area that was home to many species, now surrounded by plastic, without cleaning any of it up? 
​
Having no answer to that, I wiped the mud off the lens shade, climbed onto my one speed bike, and peddled back to our floating home, its roots also at home in the water.