Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

 Nikon D700, 24-70 lens at f4.8 and 1/180th, ISO 100,

2 flash in umbrellas camera right and left

Last Saturday my Friendswood Animal Advocacy group hosted several other local rescues at a Pet Adoption Day.  It was held in an airplane hangar that is now owned by the city of Friendswood and used for various events and it was a great building for that ---  the air conditioning was essential when it was close to 100 degrees outside.  We had some dog art for sale, lots of fresh baked biscuits, microchipping for $25 (a GREAT deal), a pet trainer to talk to and of course lots of pets available for adoption. I thought it would be fun and hopefully make our group some money to have pet portraits available.  I set up a brown background with two flashes in umbrellas on each side of the camera.  I knew that the lighter-colored animals would show up well against the dark brown and I hoped that I could use one of the flash as a rim light or a hair light to separate the darker animals from the background.  I also had a box of fun props available, for either/both human and fur subjects to dress up in.  It was chaotic at times, but still a lot of fun.  There were times I had a lot of adjusting of the flash when the subjects were significantly different in tone from the previous settings and I am not sure what can be done to make that any easier.  When planning, I thought about using a white background but then knew if I wanted it to photograph as white and not gray I would have to light it too, and I only have 2 speed lights at the moment and was thinking I would need both to light my subjects inside that hangar.  Also, I was able to successfully gel the flash for the fluorescent fixtures so I must be making progress in my journey to learn flash!

 

So my next few postings will be some of the portraits I took at the adoption event ---- just try not to smile at these!