This morning, Linda was wrapping up some stories for The Rottweiler Magazine and she yelled to me in the studio "I need some shots of Moxie being bad!" Well, there is no question that Moxie can be bad -- in fact, very, very bad. But when that happens, I'm more interested in stopping the behavior than getting pics of it. So, we discussed a few possibilities and then I set up the studio for a quick photo and took about 10 frames of Moxie being a "bad" dog. Here are three. Let me know which you prefer.







BTW, this is truth in advertising: that cord is actually a remnant of one of her chewing frenzies .

Here in Florida, the change in seasons tends to be a bit more subtle than in the rest of the country and while Fall Foliage is thought of as a burst of color before a time where Mother Nature takes a rest, in Florida, it is a time of renewal, rebirth and regeneration. Mother Nature may vacation here but she never rests . So, while I was walking the Nature Trail yesterday on a magnificent low-80's Fall day, I tried to capture the essence of Fall in Florida. Having spend most of my life in New England, I can appreciate all that color. But I can also appreciate the differences we find here.

We have a wide variety of Fall flowers.



Including tiny ones hiding in a field of Goldenrod.





Scenes of renewal with flowers draped across the charred trunks of pine trees burned from the last lightning strike.



And being visited by moths to carry their seeds throughout the wetland.



White seedpods in the midst of a sea of gold and green.



And a spider's lair in the middle of the swamp.



We have our change of season here. But it whispers it's changes instead of shouting. You have to look closely but what you find is worth the effort.

A Box Full Of Memories

Linda and I have been cleaning out the garage for the past few weeks and in doing so, I came across some old boxes of negatives and slides that I haven't seen in almost 15 years. Today, I started going through them, sorting out the stuff I wasn't ruthless enough to toss 15 years ago. As I sorted, I found some priceless photos of my/our dogs. I'd like to share some of them with you.

First up is Bernadette the St. Bernard.



Bernadette was my first dog -- I never had one as a child. She came into a Rescue Facility where I was volunteering at about a year of age and once I saw her, I fell in love. She loved and respected our cat, Sandford. She was 185 lbs. of sweet and gentle. She lived to be 13 years old, remarkable for a Saint. And I'm sure that today, she is a Saint.

When Linda and I first moved down to Orlando from Hamden, Connecticut in 1989, we brought with us out two Golden Retrievers, Harvey and Molly, the yuppie puppies. In 1996, when these pictures were taken, Harvey was 12 years old and Molly was 11. Here's Harvey Garvie:



And his sister, Molly:



A week after these pictures were taken, Molly passed away from hemangiocarcoma. She was one of the sweetest girls I've ever known. And after she left us, Harvey was just devastated. Here's a shot I took of him a few weeks later and in it, he's really showing his age.



That's when we decided that he -- and we -- needed another puppy and that puppy was our first Rottie, Annie Fay.

Here's a picture of Annie the first day she arrived in Orlando from Buffalo, NY.



Somewhere I have pictures of Harvey wearing Annie like a cape when she first came into the house. He became like a puppy again and for Annie, he was her true Alpha male. Harvey lived to be 15 years old and, when he left us, his coat had turned pure white. But during those years with Annie, he helped her deliver and nurse two litters of puppies and became the model of behavior for Rowdy. Harvey was my first puppy and the dog that taught me all about aging with dignity and grace. I miss him -- and the others -- every day.

Jim

--------------------
Jim Garvie
www.jagphoto.biz

Panoramas

Panoramas are combinations of images stitched together to create a single image that is much wider or taller than any single shot. Panoramas are usually horizontal images that cover a much wider angle of view than could be achieved with a single lens. For example, this is a panorama I created of the Cliff House dwellings in Mesa Verde, Colorado.


The image consists of 5 vertical images stitched together to create a final image that, at full resolution, is 30 inches wide by 14 inches tall at 310 dpi. The images were created using a Canon 7D DSLR and were shot with a Canon 200 mm F2.8L lens from over a half-mile away on the other side of the canyon. Usually, photographers will use a tripod to maintain the image plane while swiveling from one side to the other. In this particular case, it was so windy, I couldn't use my tripod so I anchored myself to the fence that protects people from falling off the overview and basically used that to steady the lens while being buffeted by 20 knot winds. At full size, you can count the individual bricks in each of the dwellings.

Panoramas allow us to create photographs that define the scope of what we are seeing with our eyes. A scope that is often much broader and larger than can be captured in a single 8X12 print.

Today, I finally got some time off from business and Christmas activities and decided to take Sundance for a walk along the Shingle Creek Trail. This is the Trail where I used to take Rowdy and Crash because I could let them off-lead and still know they were under control. Since the boys left us, I hadn't taken any of the other dogs on this particular walk -- for a variety of reasons including some emotional ones. But today, I felt it was Sundance's turn.

I walked Sundance on a Flexi just to make sure that if we met people, they wouldn't be afraid. We walked along the Creek and Sundance got to smell things he'd never smelled before. He was in snorfing heaven! Midway up the Trail, we spotted an Egret along the other side of the stream and I took a few shots.



Then, we followed the Trail along the power lines where there are a lot of swampy areas. We stopped near one lagoon and just quietly watched the water and the shore to see if there were any other birds feeding there. Then, I heard a splash and looked up to see a River Otter cruising toward us.



Now, there are a lot of River Otters along Shingle Creek, but they are stealthy little guys and while I've seen them in the distance, I've never been able to get close enough to actually get any decent shots usually because I was with a dog and didn't have the right lens. So to see this guy no more than 50 feet from us was really special. Sundance didn't move a muscle and the two of us watched him come closer using that huge tail to cruise along.



When he got pretty close to us, he heard the noise of my camera and stopped to see what it was.



And then, with one swish of his tail, he dove for cover. We stood there for a few more minutes and Sundance wandered closer to the edge of the water and then I noticed the foliage on the surface of the water moving slightly. The big guy came back for one more camouflaged look and then dove away again.



It was a great find and now that I know where this guy hangs out, I can go back at dawn or dusk and see if I can get some more shots of him and his friends. All in all, it was a great walk and Sundance got to enjoy a place that used to be special for his grandfather, Rowdy.

Jim

Portrait Lenses

One question I get asked a lot is: "What's the best lens for taking classical portraits -- head and shoulders?" My typical answer is: "it depends." Usually, when you take a head & shoulders portrait, you want to throw the background out of focus so the attention is on the subject and not on the overall image. However, the quality of the out-of-focus areas -- the bokeh as photographers refer to it -- is important. Smooth, buttery out-of-focus highlights will make your portrait itself smoother and more professional. For the shot of our puppy, Moxie, I used my Canon 200mm F2.8L lens and shot her at F5.0. You'll notice that she is in focus from the tip of her nose to the top of her head but everything beyond that is softly diffused.


The picture of the Cavalier, Chesney, on the right was taken with my Canon 50mm F1.4 shot at F2.2. My objective was to highlight Chesney's beautiful headpiece while letting the background go blurry. The shot was taken in a hurry in front of our house in an area that is actually not all the pretty in focus but looks wonderful when you use a lens with lovely bokeh and let it go diffused. This image was used in a stud dog package and got Chesney some action the very first time it was sent out. Naturally, I'm taking full credit :)

The wedding portrait to the left, a candid taken during the reception, was intended to show Jennifer and Ray in a special moment during an otherwise chaotic day. Here they are dancing in a room full of people but they might as well be completely alone. They were so totally into each other and so very much in love. For this shot, I used my Canon 85mm F1.8 at F2.2 and ISO 3,200. There wasn't much light in the room but I didn't think that using flash would capture the mood. Plus I wanted to shoot at a wide aperture to set them off against a creamy background. I think this shot captures the mood and the moment and using the 85 instead of the 50 allowed me to be far enough away from them to not intrude on their emotions.

Three situations; three different lenses; three similar results. I prefer to use lenses that are "normal" to telephoto in terms of focal length because wide-angle lenses can distort facial features and make subjects look wider than they really are. In fact, I tell everyone that my self-portraits were all taken with a very wide-angle lens :). The way these portrait lenses compress the features and diffuse the backgrounds makes them my lenses of choice for portrait work both in the field and in the studio.

The Image Of Rescue

That's Precious and she's an approximately 6-year old Rottweiler that as of yesterday was in Orlando Animal Control. Precious was found in an abandoned warehouse. She weighs about 65 lbs. and she's exceptionally sweet. She is also heartworm positive and needs treatment immediately.

This isn't the first time that Precious has been taken into Orlando Animal Control. Four years ago she was picked up on the street and was spayed, given her shots and placed in another home in not the greatest of neighborhoods. I met Ms. P when, as a Director of Gulfstream Guardian Angels Rottweiler Rescue, I was called to evaluate her and help determine her age (she was listed by OAC as 1 year old!). She greeted me with a firm, confident stare without a hint of either fear or aggression. She hates to have the slip-leash placed over her head -- I suspect it's happened far too many times -- but she only dodges until you finally catch her. And then, she's perfectly happy to walk with you. So, out to the yard we went for some photos, a physical exam and some puppy runs around the play area.

Precious came over to me when I sat on the bench and placed her head in my lap. I stroked her all over, examined her for injuries or scars and then checked her teeth. She never once complained. Of course, I also kept her supplied with vast numbers of Milk Bones. After the exam and the photo session, we slipped her leash back on and took her back to her cage. I wrote the other Board members and told them that although Precious is middle-aged, she is active, happy, and incredibly sweet with both people and other dogs. Despite the fact that it is difficult to place "older" dogs, I felt we should save this girl and attempt to get her adopted. Last night, the Board agreed and today, we took Ms. Precious out of Animal Control. She'll need to spend 2 weeks in quarantine because of the potential for illness coming out of OAC, but after that, she'll be listed on our website and I'll work personally to find her a good home.

Rescue is hard. For every dog we take in, treat and place there are 10 more that get euthanized in shelters every month. And we can't take every dog that gets picked up. They have to be good dogs. Adoptable, trustworthy and healthy. But when I meet a girl like Precious, and we manage to be able to save her and give her a chance for adoption, I appreciate what Rescue is really all about.

Jim

Pet Portraits

Pet portraits come in two flavors: studio portraits and environmental portraits. Here are examples of each.

Studio portraits have their own special lighting challenges plus you need to select the style of the backdrop and the overall "feel" of the image. This one, for example, is "low key" using black as the basic color from which we bring up the subjects in the portrait.

Environmental portraits often use available light or on-camera flash to create catchlights in the eyes of the subject. In this example, we also used a very fast lens (85mm F1.8) and opened it up to F2.2 to create the diffused background from which the dog "pops".

In both images, the dog's expression is very important. If the dog is comfortable in the studio or in the environment where the portrait is being taken, then the next challenge is to get their attention and bait them into giving great expression. You can use toys, food or make ridiculous noises with your mouth -- whatever works to get the animal to look at you and give you the expression you want. I sometimes think my greatest skill is not with the camera but with my ability to throw toys accurately with my left hand while I'm shooting with my right hand :).

Picture This!

This is my first post to our new blog spot at www.jimgarviephoto.bloggespot.com. The first thing to know about my photography is that I've been doing it for a looooong time! Over 40 years. Back when film was the recording medium and not CCD or CMOS sensors. And in all that time, the basics of photography haven't changed: you still have to expose the sensor with a certain amount of light for a certain amount of time to get properly exposed images. What folks may not realize is that back in the film days, it would be a week or more before we'd see our images so we learned quickly what combinations of amount of light (f-stops) for amount of time (shutter speed) would give us the best chance of getting usable images.

Today of course, we can see what the camera sees almost immediately. But the basics remain the same: you still have to expose your subject for a certain amount of time with a certain amount of light to get properly-exposed images. And sometimes, just placing the camera on "Auto" won't work. You have to know intuitively what combination is necessary for not only proper exposure but proper sharpness, proper depth-of-field, proper ISO to control the noise factor, etc. In short, being a "photographer" is more than having the right camera gear. It's a matter of what's between your ears and how much mileage is under your feet. The camera is simply a tool -- a very sophisticated tool but a tool nonetheless. The real creative force in image creation is the photographer him or herself. Keep that in mind when you think of hiring a photographer for your event or your creative project. Pick a photographer that knows how to create great images and not just how to set the camera properly.

Jim Garvie