Mel's Belles!

YaY! Puppies!!! oh and Mel too! This photographing is tough work, had to get up before the crack of dawn just to drive 40mins to Shorncliffe Jetty. Some other photographer was there trying to do landscapes in the pre-dawn. Thought he'd snap one or two but then he proceeded to spend 10 or more minutes flaffing about with his tripod in the sand, so I thought "stuff you if you are going to waste the pre-dawn light" and started taking photos of Mel whilst in his frame. ;-7 Bit rude really... oh well.



I never realised how quick the sun rises! It's worse than working against the tide. I think we had about 20 mins pre-dawn and about 1/2 hour once the sun had cracked the horizon and it was like working against an atomic bomb.




Amy was all about where to position the lights relative to the subject. Mel was more about positioning the camera relative to the lights and the subject. I didn't feel it at all simple especially adjusting the exposure every time to compensate for the rising sun and rapid increase in light levels.



Things I need to be aware of in future... Since I was concentrating so hard on getting the exposure right, and the rush against time, my frame composition went out to window, paws cropped off, tails off frame etc... must work harder. I rely on Nikon's Creative Lighting System too much and need to start using the flashes in manual mode combined with full manual mode in the camera rather than relying on the camera's meter to get the exposures I would like. Some things like having the sun in frame whilst using a couple of off camera strobes isn't quite what the exposure programmers had in mind when they were creating the D200.



Thanks Mel for braving the cold and bringing the pups! I had an awesome time! You ROCK! And a BIG thanks to Claire for also braving the cold, being dog handler extraordinaire, uber photo roadie and my strobe biznatch coz I'm too cheap to get a second light stand! Some photos of the various setups and dog shenanigans.