We're so glad you stopped by. Who are 'we'? We are the members of the Cowbelly Pet Photography Team; specifically, Jamie Pflughoeft: gal who pushes the buttons on the camera, self-professed dog fanatic and killer scrabble player; Princess Fergermeister: studio floor licker, affection service provider and furry visitor alarm; And Christina Ellis: Jamie's right-hand gal, studio assistant extraordinaire and future Olympian in the sport of urban bicycle riding.
Enjoy the sometimes sublime, frequently frivolous, and always indulgent ramblings of the Cowbelly team as we make our way through the fun and hectic adventures in petphotographyland, and watch as we narrowly complete big commercial assignments, teach intensive workshops, and provide photography services to the denizens of Seattle (and beyond) who for some crazy reason pay us to take their furry kids' pictures. We are now five years into this little business and loving every minute of it. Come along for the ride! If you feel a burning desire to learn more about Cowbelly go here: www.cowbelly.com, or email us at info@cowbelly.com.
Some of you may be familiar with Marisa Haedike’s adorable work of Creative Thursday- darling little animals bursting with personality- both in paintings and 3d sculptures so tiny they practically define the word ‘cute’. If not you need to go check it out now, and enter to win her thoroughly sweet 2009 calendar. (But do it soon- the contest is only open through this Sunday, December 21 midnight PST!)
Click on the photo to head to the Creative Thursday blog and find out how to enter. Yippee!
Oh boy, this is so exciting. I am just starting to blog-hop, after (finally) catching up with posts on my private forum (more on that soon) and am discovering lots of super talented artists and photographers are doing holiday giveaways. Hopefully it’s not too late to post most of them here. I’m in luck with Anne’s because she just posted it yesterday, woohoo!
Here is what you can win:
Enter to Win Anne’s Holiday Giveaway!
A $100 value (shipping is on Anne)!
Go check out her post here to learn how to enter.
Whoopee!
Some experimenting with natural light in the studio a couple of weeks ago. And it was natural light only because the studio lights I rented did nothing to illuminate the voluminous space. Oh and uh, I broke one of them. More on that in a later post, lol.
Gracie. She is so pretty.
Gracie and her favorite toy.
Gracie’s brother Henry, who is also handsome from the front as you will see in a moment.
Froggy legs!
I have NO idea what I am doing in the studio. The whole concept baffles me, and I’m not totally sold on the idea, but I have a little bit more experimenting to do before writing it off entirely. Here I had some weird color balance issues, which you can see in the next pair, which I actually think are a bit of a happy accident color-wise (FYI: the seamless paper was a deep smoky blue).
Oh Henry you are so handsome. Not as handsome as Frank, but close. 
More studio shots soon. Hope everyone is staying warm out there! Fergie is LOVING our snow!
Jamie, Two goldies in the studio could not have been easy, but you did great!
I love the frog legs…my boy does that and it is hysterical. I have never had a dog that lay that way before…..
I really like the second one of Gracie!
jamie, i just did my first studio session last week. I had my photographer friend help with the lights and I really enjoyed it. Now must buy studio lights in 2009.
I love these!
@ pammy- ha! you would! considering they ARE goldens after all, lol. 
This post is long overdue. Fergus and Lola are two very special apricot standard poodles whose parents had me over several months ago to capture their sweet kids in photos. There was a bit of urgency to us scheduling the shoot as Fergus had been diagnosed with cancer and had been losing energy. He has a tumor on the side of his face, and they were worried they wouldn’t have much time left. Anytime I hear ‘cancer’ I pretty much drop everything and get there with camera in hand. I really will put everything else on hold if I am able to, and go photograph furry loved ones with a terminal diagnosis.
The good news is that the last word was that Fergus is doing well! He eats homecooked food and couldn’t possibly be more loved by his parents. And I am sure having a nutty, entertaining, sweet sister like Lola helps his cause.
Lola tormenting her poor older brother.
Lola wasn’t sure about the balloons at first but when she figured out they were fun she was totally into it.
Fergus looks beautiful with the blue sky and colorful balloons. He is such a sweet, gentle dog.
I love this shot of Fergus. It makes me feel like I am there at our shoot in September, not in frigid December weather. Baby, it’s coooold outside.
Fergus on the left; Lola on the right. These shots pretty much sum up their personalities.
This next shot has to be my favorite from our session.
And, for your viewing pleasure, a few before and afters. All processed in LR2, then saved for web in PSCS3.
By the way, after some extensive experimenting with saving for web settings, including saving different ICC profiles, sharpening and not sharpening and saving as different quality jpeg settings, I have come to the conclusion that ’saving for web’ seriously degrades the files, and if I ’save as’ 8 quality jpeg the files look just like I intend them to, and are only slightly larger. The difference in quality is really striking. See below.
The top image is saved as 8 quality jpeg, and looks like I want it to; the bottom image is saved for web as maximum quality, bicubic sampling, NOT saving the ICC profile (saving the ICC profiles looks so much worse).
See the difference in the door, and the color balance and exposure? All from saving for web. I feel a little silly that I am just now realizing this but I was just doing what was recommended for this blog design. I know you don’t want huge file sizes on already very large images, as it will slow the whole blog down, but I’ll take the few extra kbs to gain the better quality anyday.
I knew for awhile that I was having issues with images not looking good in terms of color and exposure shifts and pixelation, but I didn’t realize just how bad until my little experiment. Of course, I did this little experiment AFTER processing and saving the images above, lol. Ah well, look for better looking files from me from this point on. Thank god I don’t have this problem with my prints!
I just want to give a big shout out to my most excellent assistant Christina, who is currently at the post office shipping some of my holiday packages to clients. She has been a huge help this season and her presence makes my business so much more fun and enjoyable to run. This has been the best December of my business by far and I have her to thank for that. On days like today I couldn’t ask for anything more. (awww…)
Thank you Christina for all that you do for me (!!) and here is a pretty picture I designed in photoshop just for you:
Kudos to you girl!
happy holidays jamie and fergie!
xo
melissa and emmitt