DJ, The English Bulldog

I had the pleasure of photographing DJ yesterday, an English bulldog who is about a year old. DJ has a great face. He was a real trooper for the shoot, putting up with my flash and requests to please perk up his ears; look this way; look that way; look up; look down; stay; sit; ignore the camera; and so forth. (Fortunately, DJ’s upright companion, Logan, has worked out the communication key, which smelled a bit like jerky.)

Logan asked specifically that something fun and different be included among the photos she’d get. She mentioned she liked some of the artistic effects she had seen applied using Photoshop. The image below is among those Logan will receive today. I have to admit that I’m pretty much a purest at this point in my photography; I don’t use a lot of “out of camera” effects or Photoshop filters.

Do you think she will like it? Please let me know your honest thoughts.

[Curious about my Lightsphere hack? Just ask.]

Nikon D300, SB700 fill-flash with hacked Gary Fong Lightsphere, ISO 200, 1/400 sec at f/1.8. Brush stroke obtained using the Adobe Photoshop CS5 Artistic >;;; Dry Brush filter.

Looking for a pet? Please save a life: choose the shelter adoption option.

=^..^=

Thank you for stopping by I Shutter At The Thought!

I appreciate the opportunity to share my photography with you. If you enjoyed this post, please view some others and help me spread the word by sharing it with others you think might enjoy it, too.

The Other Woman

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.  – Henri Cartier-Bresson

My dad has a great, albeit rather dry, sense of humor. I can’t help but smile when I recall the first time I sat down at his PC to help him with a problem. It was then that I discovered he’d specified the computer’s machine name as “The_Other_Woman”, due to all the hours of his time it consumes.

As you might have read in some of my earlier posts, my father also loves photography. It was he who taught me at a young age to see photography as an art form in which I could let my imagination run and play. In so many ways beyond photography, my father is a role model, a mentor and a respected and valued critic.

After a lifetime of B&W film photography and weekends MIA in the darkroom, Dad made the switch to digital. This wasn’t a simple feat: it meant he had to first learn to use a computer so he could learn to use Photoshop. And when it comes to the computer, patience is never an attribute of his user experience!

This will be a surprise to him, but today I’m proud to share a few of my father’s photos with my readers. Please enjoy!

Please leave your comments and questions below, and thanks for visiting my photo-blog. Please come again!

Abstract Photography

Lakeside Forest

These images have not been altered in Photoshop, other than the addition of the watermark. They came out of the camera this way; they represent what the camera saw.

I created both images using my Nikon D300’s built-in flash and dragging the shutter with a 1/2-second exposure at f/32, ISO 200. I’m not going to reveal what my subjects were yet, as I believe to do so would influence or alter your perception of the images.

These are my first efforts at total “in camera” abstraction. I invite you to use the comment forum below to let me know what you think!

Aurora Digitalis