Puppy Portraits

This week we managed to get our dogs to hold still long enough to snap a few new portraits. As usual, they don't have the patience for me, so I had to make the few we snapped count. Occasionally, I drive them nuts by following them around with the camera, and sometimes I'm able to grab the camera and snap a shot before that "too cute" moment is gone. In this case, I used a snoot on a Nikon SB-800 just to camera right. Like many of us, I'm on a budget, so I crafted my own snoot with silver poster board and Velcro. For me, it works as well as the $25 ones. The snoot controls the direction of the flash and keeps the light off the background (in this case, a wall about 6 feet behind Jet). In the second shot here, Daisy's laying on her favorite blanket. She looked right up the snoot on the flash for me, and surprisingly enough, let me snap a couple before she'd had enough of that bright flash. A digital darkroom effect known as "sepia" has been applied to the photo to simulate a faded brownish color and give it an "old photo" look.

All rights reserved. © Mark Stern Photography.