The title for this post may be a bit misleading.  I didn’t actually shoot any animals (like with a gun or anything), but I shot some photos of a friend’s puppy this weekend.  The word  “puppy” may be a bit misleading here as well.  This dog might only be 6 months old, but she was easily 4 times the size of the full grown Kosmo.  She was a beautiful white labrador by the name of Barley (yes, like beer).

So it all started about a month ago when I posted some photos of Kosmo and Tobey on my facebook page.

I received several nice comments on these photos and one of my friends, Taylor, asked me if I would be interested in taking photos of Barley.  I immediately jumped on the opportunity to do this photo shoot.  I’m always looking for more ways to practice and get experience of working with clients.  So, after coming to an easy agreement on the session cost - a 6 pack of good beer :) – we made arrangements to meet.

Here are a few of the great shots that came out of this session!

I have received a lot of fantastic responses to these photos on facebook.  Hopefully this will open up more opportunities for me to practice my photography, make a little money and meet some more wonderful people.

A big THANK YOU to Taylor, Adam and of course Barley!  You’re such an amazing family :)

You can view all of the photos in the photo set on my flickr page.

Well, it shouldn’t be any secret, but I absolutely love this little guy.

He always manages to bring a smile to my face doing just the simplest of things.  It could be when he I come home to find his happy little self waiting anxiously for me to walk through the door; when he gives me slobbering wet chin kisses whenever I get near his face; when he insists on sitting in my lap when I’m trying to work on my laptop; when he insists on playing fetch while I’m trying to eat; when he passes audible gas and just looks at you like nothing happened; or even when I come home to find a pile of stuffed animal guts, monkey limbs, squeakers and dismembered hippos.  All of these things bring a smile to my face and remind me of how much I love him.

This post is for you Kosmo.  I less than three you.

At the beginning of the month Lynn and I took a vacation to Negril, Jamaica.  We stayed at a wonderful resort called Couples and had a fantastic experience.  The people there were so nice and relaxing.  It was very common to have sentences ended with “No Problem, Mon!” :)

A couple days ago I received a Thank You email from them thanking me for my stay and informing me of various promotions they are currently running.  The email also mentioned a photo contest that they have where the winner gets 3 free nights at one of their resorts.  That brings me to the purpose of this post.

Below are a few of the photos that I’m considering submitting for this contest.  Please check them out and leave a comment letting me know which photo(s) you think is the best and why.

A:

B:

C:

D:

E: (this wasn't actually taken at the resort, so I'm very likely not going to submit this one)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Lately I’ve been working on my lighting and post production skills in my photography.  Here are a few photos that I took last weekend of The Kosmo.

I’m pretty happy with the way that they turned out.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

A couple weeks ago I posted about a technique that I was testing on capturing motion blur.  Today I'm going to post about a different technique to achieve the opposite effect.  This technique is about using a fast shutter speed to stop (aka: freeze) motion.

So, the other night I was home alone and really wanted to play with my new tripod and 430EX II Canon Speedlite :)  I decided that taking photos of myself floating in air would be a fun thing to do, so I mounted my camera on the tripod and put on a wide lens.

Unfortunately I didn't have a place to mount my flash off the camera, so I had to mount it on-camera.  In order to prevent the typical flat, DMV-style photos, with hard shadows, that you get when using an on-camera flash, I bounced the light off of the white door behind the camera.  Notice the nice soft shadow in the corner?

The first image was shot with a shutter speed of 1/50 sec whereas the second one was shot at 1/5.  Notice the light trails in the second image?  This is due to the slower shutter speed.

Even though the first image properly stopped the motion, I didn't like how over-exposed the window was.  I decided to shoot at an even faster shutter speed to reduce the available light that was coming through the window.
Using 1/200 did just the trick. :)

You can view the rest of the images on the Stop Motion - Jump! page.