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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
01-26-2015, 08:35 PM
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During a recent holiday in Puerto Vallarta, I spent a couple of afternoons photographing dogs and cats at the SPCA-Puerto Vallarta, a no-kill rescue. If you are ever in PV, please contact them. It's a wonderful shelter and they love to have photographers visit. They also need help from people visiting PV from Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary who are willing to transport a dog from PV to the arms of a foster family (pick-up at the airport) or transport an empty crate back to PV.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
11-28-2014, 06:40 PM
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I was photographing a colleague and his pets for part of a portrait project I'm doing, focusing on people involved in animal welfare and the animals they love. Polo here obviously has excellent taste in camera gear.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
11-02-2014, 07:37 PM
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Not a pet but as cute and fluffy as one - here's a Northern Saw-Whet Owl (about the size of my fist), who got some TLC at the Wild Bird Fund (Home), where I volunteer, before being released back into the wild. I believe he banged into a window earlier this week, but wasn't badly injured so was able to be released today.
I photographed him with my 50mm f/1.8 at about f/3.2. No flash, because I didn't want to freak him out, but another volunteer added some light using an app on his phone and that helped get the ISO down into an acceptable range. His toes and lower body are a bit soft but I think his face turned out fairly sharp, even with the limited DOF.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
08-12-2014, 05:48 PM
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I'm sorry that Winnie isn't feeling well and that you are worried about her. A hug from me to you, too, and I will keep both of you in my thoughts.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
08-12-2014, 12:05 PM
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My favorite cat at the shelter where I volunteer as a photographer died after an illness that we couldn't figure out. I had been trying to persuade my husband to adopt him (but we already have 3 cats in a Manhattan apartment).
I'm just shattered. Noel was a stray who never got to have a loving family of his own. :(
I want to go over the shelter right now and bring home all the "lifers".
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
06-28-2014, 09:56 AM
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Cool - How big is it? What's its name?
Here's a photo of Jasper that I made for my photography course last week - experimenting with low key lighting.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
05-22-2014, 06:03 AM
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Not pets - just temporary residents (the pigeons) of the wild bird rehabilitation center where I volunteer. And the baby squirrel came to work in the purse of a staff member who fosters critters like this in her spare time. He was still feeding from an eye dropper so he needed round-the-clock attention.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
04-14-2014, 10:23 AM
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Does Morty belong to you? He's quite a charmer :)
Tex the bulldog is up for adoption with Mighty Mutts in NYC. He's quite a sweetie. (I think I need to re-edit this image to lower the exposure a bit. The sun was very strong and I think this image looks a little hot.)
And Maddox (some kind of foxhound) was enjoying the sunny afternoon in Union Square Park.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
04-04-2014, 12:38 PM
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My sister talks about how when one of their house cats passes on, the barn cats immediately start submitting their applications for house cat status.
Originally, we planned to have two cats. We got Jasper and Louise as kittens in June 2012. Tragically, Louise contracted FIP and died about 6 weeks after we got her. We were heartbroken, but we wanted Jasper to grow up with another cat, so we got Robson (half-brother) about a month later. (We had hoped for a girl but there weren't any available in that litter.) About 4 months later, my husband said "I still want a girl, you know." So we got Andromeda.
Space limitations (primarily space in our Queen Size bed) have made us stop at three cats - that and the fact that we could get kicked out of our apartment building.
Tonks (From left to right: Jasper, Andie, Robbie)
I find it very hard not to come home with cats after a photo session at the shelter. I do know an awesome black and white cat looking for a home in NYC, if you'd like a seventh :)
Adoptable Cats at Ollie's Place - frogoutofwater |
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
04-04-2014, 09:11 AM
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Great photo. So does the 2nd cat from the left have any white markings, because the other three look like such a coordinated set?
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
03-28-2014, 01:08 PM
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Such a handsome guy!
gifthorse - Glad to hear that the ferals are already fixed (although I'm sure they're not necessarily happy about it) ...
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
03-28-2014, 08:47 AM
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Nice action shots.
Food and catnip - I think you just got yourself a couple of pet cats :)
Have you thought about taking them into your local humane society to get them spayed/neutered? Some do it for free or at low cost in situations like this.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-21-2014, 10:48 AM
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In the first photo, I think Jasper and Andie look like they've killed something and are cleaning up afterward. The second is one of my favourites of Andie. I made it into a greeting card and have been selling it (and a few other designs) as a fundraiser for an animal shelter.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-17-2014, 07:43 AM
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I can tell that the days are getting longer because our cats have reclaimed the windowsill in our bedroom for some sunbathing.
It's also clear that our windows are filthy (unfortunately, the dirt is outside and we're 25 floors up).
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-16-2014, 02:14 PM
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That first photo is incredibly adorable and the second is not far behind.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-16-2014, 09:58 AM
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I'll bet there are a number of Pentaxians (including a group on this thread) who volunteer, or want to volunteer, as photographers at animal shelters. Do you think it would be worth starting a thread to share images, tips and experiences? It would also be a good way to raise the profile of organizations with which we're working.
Also, these photos aren't of a pet, but were taken at a wildlife rehabilitation centre where I also volunteer. My work focuses mainly on wildlife care (i.e., cleaning up bird poop, but also feeding birds and assisting the licensed rehabbers). We've got a baby pigeon right now - meet Vanessa, who seems to be doing fairly well.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-16-2014, 07:05 AM
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Thanks! Labour of love.
Recently, I made a photo Valentine's card as a fundraiser, through moo.com and using an image of one of my cats holding a rose. Inside it says "Please be mine" and the back of the card says "Share your love. Save a stray" and refers to the shelter I work for. It was just a small print run, but I'm pleased to report that I raised over $650 for the shelter through sales (I donated the full purchase price) and donations.
I also made some inexpensive calendars (through Vistaprint) at year-end with images of the dogs and cats and gave them to the volunteers.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-15-2014, 08:03 PM
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Hi Toy Tank - Thanks for taking the time to photograph dogs at the shelter. Good photos really help the adoption process. How did your session go today? I've been doing this for a rescue organization in New York City for about six months now. Here are a few suggestions based on my limited experience so far.
1. Take sanitary precautions, especially if you have pets at home. (I'm particularly careful around the cats at the shelter because I have cats.) Wash your hands on arrival. Minimize handling the pets, especially around eyes, noses, etc. Wash your hands before you leave. Strip off when you get home and throw your clothes in the wash.
2. Make the shelter staff's and volunteers' experience at the shelter easier. Make sure you understand the ground rules of how to interact with the animals - don't give your own treats or toys unless someone approves it first (they might have dietary or behavioral issues). Go with the flow instead of trying to impose your vision of how the perfect photo shoot would be, especially at the beginning. With each return visit, you can work on improving something, but don't push for perfect all at once. Be consistent and reliable. I try to go every other week at about the same time, and I always upload the photos I've taken within 24 hours (usually within 6 hours). (These are the things the volunteers told me they liked about how I worked with them, in comparison with their experiences with certain other photographers.)
3. You might luck out and be given a relatively uncluttered environment with good light in which to do your photographs. It's just as likely that you'll end up in a cluttered and/or poorly lit location. If that's the case, then you might try shooting fairly wide open, and ideally with a bit of distance between the dog or cat and the background, so you can blur out the background. (For pet photography, generally I prefer to shoot at around 6.3, especially with dogs, to get as much of the head in focus as possible, but I often find that I need to shoot at about f/4 and ISO 3200 in order to get a decent shot with decent shutter speed indoors.) For indoor work, I also use a flash with a Gary Fong light diffuser.
4. I find that some of the best photos I take are ones where there is some human-animal interaction. With smaller dogs and with cats, you can often get a great photo, if a volunteer stands or sits facing away from you and holds the dog or cat over his shoulder looking at you - take some shots like that and some with the volunteer turning his or her head toward the dog.
5. I often find that the best shots happen after I've just been hanging around for a while, usually sitting on the floor watching the action. The animals relax around me a little (and so do the volunteers) and I get to capture some interesting behavior.
6. I've experimented with portable backdrops and nothing has really worked well so far. However, once the weather gets a little better and I'm doing more outdoor work (at Union Square in NYC), I'm planning to bring a solid blue, fleece-lined water resistant picnic blanket with me. It can function almost like a seamless backdrop, with the dog sitting on it and either a volunteer holding it behind the dog or maybe clipping it to the bars of the fence. I can throw it in the wash when I get home.
I'm definitely still learning a lot - in particular, I want to get better at lighting in the tough situations where I photograph. But it's very rewarding work - the only problem is that I want to bring all the animals home with me.
If you'd like to look at some of my work, here are a couple of galleries:
Adoptable Dogs at Mighty Mutts
Adoptable Cats at Ollie's Place - frogoutofwater
And here are two recent, favourite photos from the adoption drive:
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
02-03-2014, 07:39 PM
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I love the photo of Ruby and it's good to hear that Lucy is recovering from her surgery.
Here's a photo of one of the adoptable cats at the shelter where I volunteer as a photographer - Rowena, looking refined.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
01-18-2014, 12:32 PM
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I've been busy for a few days and haven't had the time to check out photos on this thread - so many great images! I love the snake photo, Hogboy. Did you arrange it to make such a nice composition?
I was taking a studio lighting course this past week at the International Center of Photography in NYC. It was an excellent class - dynamic and helpful teacher, interesting students, great lessons. But the best part was that the teacher (Robert Meyer) brought his dog to class every day. And when we had our full night of shooting models, he helped me set up the lights to do some portraits of his beautiful Golden, Sky. Here are a couple of my favourite shots:
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
01-13-2014, 12:52 PM
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They are very cute. How big are they?
I like rodents, too (my first pet was a gerbil; I've also had hamsters and guinea pigs) but I don't think they'd coexist with our cats. Plus, we're pretty much at "full house" status with 3 cats in an NYC apartment right now.
But a girl can dream, right?
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
01-10-2014, 10:48 AM
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He's gorgeous. But I think you should shorten his name to Super.
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