ekimages: Creative Imaging Final Project-Dog Portraits!

Ziggy

Well, here it is! I've had a few request to post my final project- dog portraits- to my blog so friends and family of these GREAT Models can view the final results. As school wound down for the year we were assigned different, larger final projects. For Creative Imaging we could choose to complete a project of interest to us. The stipulation was that it included at least 15 images and was worth 20 % of our final grade for the course. My Major was Portraiture and I decided that I would like to investigate Dog Portraiture. I thought- In people portraiture, the photographer tries to capture the individual's "essence" or personality-can the same be applied to an animal such as a dog?? My goal was to photograph many dogs both known and unknown to me as well photograph them in different settings- Home, in natural light, in a studio setting, yes, and even at a dog show. I tried to think of some words of wisdom to give to photographer's photographing dogs and just came up with a few tips. Have treats ready (3 of dogs I photographed actually loved carrot pieces!) crinkled up bags ie:chip bags got their attention and sometimes key words they understood like"Walk" worked well in getting them to pick up there ears. Some of the dogs I spent lots of time with, going to the park, and usually I tried to photograph them in a spot that they would naturally gravitate towards in their home, like a big chair, front stairs, etc.. Some of the images , When I felt the dogs character was fun or they had an animated look to them I did a little "Edgy" processing to the photo to make it look more painted and less photo like. It was really fun to do and I think what struck me the most was that each dog had it's own personality and I could really see how much these animals were loved by their owners.