Seattle Dog Photography | Cowbelly Pet Photography Seattle Blog

Tag Archives: seattle dog photography

Fergus & Lola

December 16, 2008 – 7:00 am

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!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Private client shoots | Also tagged apricot poodles, apricot standard poodle photos, cancer in dogs, fergus & lola, maple valley pet photography | Comments (11)

More Apollo

December 1, 2008 – 7:45 am

Apollo is a very big rescued houndog mix. He is bigger than these images portray- almost great dane sized, and a leaner (awww). I had so much fun at our shoot as I think you can see from the images. Well, it was super fun up until a certain point and then it just became painful for everyone involved. More on that further down the post.

We did our shoot at the Arboretum. One of the prettiest places in Seattle to shoot in the fall. The past month every time a client has suggested I pick the location for our shoot I have said “Arboretum!” without hesitation. This was the 2nd one I did there in two weeks.

I did another shoot at this location the day after I got back from California, and my flight into Seattle flew low, directly over the arboretum. I was so excited for our shoot (one of the Christmas dogs) because the trees looked like they had been painted with a paintbrush or brightly colored spray paint- the colors were amazing. By Apollo’s shoot the leaves were still on fire.

Y’all remember the shot on the right? He was turning his head toward me when I snapped this shot. Thank god for fast lenses, eh? Hee hee…

So now you want to know why the shoot ended up being painful, right? Well, during the time I was taking the shot on the left below, we (his parents and I) were all laughing at the crazy way Apollo was contorting his body. I had never seen a dog do that before. We laughed for a couple of minutes, until I said something to the effect of “uh oh, do you think maybe he was bitten by a fly?”. I was close. It wasn’t a fly, it was a bee. And there were lots more where that one came from.

The bee sting series.

Seconds after this series of pictures was taken, I felt a strong pinch on my wrist and looked down to discover in horror I had a yellowjacket stuck in my arm, and a whole bunch of his/her friends on the right and left sleeves of my sweatshirt. Everything happened pretty fast but I do remember madly swatting the bee off my wrist, letting some expletives fly, whipping my sweatshirt off and flinging it, dropping my camera and running, and calling Apollo’s name to follow me, all pretty much at the same time.

Those little buggers followed us, and poor Apollo got stung not just once, but several times. His dad got stung too. The only person to make it out unscathed was his mom. I had bees stuck down the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and we got a long ways away on the trail and they were still following us. They were MAD. I am thinking we must have stepped on their home in the leaves.

I haven’t been stung by a bee since I was a kid, and let me tell you it HURTS. BAD. I don’t really know if it they were yellowjackets or what, but those suckers meant business and I don’t really remember honey bees being that nasty. In any case, I felt soooo bad for Apollo- he was clearly miserable, desperately leaning this way and that to try and lick and soothe his stings.

But believe it or not, this was just halfway through our shoot, and many of the shots above I got after the bee incident (the orange toy shots and all of the shots below ‘happiness is a smiling dog’ were all taken with bee stings). Apollo was such a good sport, and aside from me being miserable for the rest of the day researching ‘bee sting treatment’ online we all made it out fine, and I think the photos made it worth it. Apparently Apollo was just fine by the time he got home. I was so relieved. I was really worried about the big guy.

I have a newfound respect for piles of pretty fall leaves in parks, and so too should you.

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Private client shoots, seattle dog photography | Also tagged bees in the arboretum, cowbelly fall dog shoots, happiness is a smiling dog, more apollo | Comments (8)

Apollo- shot of the year

November 20, 2008 – 8:11 pm

f/2.8, 200 ISO, 24mm, 1/1000, natural light. Seattle Arboretum.

I have more images of Apollo, and I promise you more hilarity will ensue.

Hope nobody choked on their coffee.

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Private client shoots, seattle dog photography, sneak-peek | Also tagged apollo, funny dog photos, hilarious, seattle arboretum, silly dog images | Comments (13)

Gunner Greenlake sneak-peek

October 18, 2008 – 2:10 pm

I am loving the fall dog sessions! Fall is my favorite time of year, both in general and for photographing dogs outdoors in parks. Especially goldens, I think because their golden fur creates such a nice look with the golden sunshine and foliage.

It’s pretty cool that we can get shots like these in the middle of the city.

The subtitle to this post should be “Gunner and his stick”.

You see, I gave Gunner this stick at the beginning of our shoot, and he decided it was his favorite thing ever in the history of favorite things. Through the entire shoot he cracked his mom and I up with his stick antics. We tried hiding it, we tried taking it away, we tried distracting him, and he wasn’t having any of it it. Gunner is awesome.

Nicole this next one is for you because I know how much you love black and whites.

Hope everyone is having an awesome fall. It’s gorgeous in Seattle!

By Jamie 'Cowbelly' | Posted in Private client shoots, seattle dog photography, sneak-peek | Also tagged fall dog photography, gunner fall photos, gunner greenlake, seattle dogs in the fall | Comments (10)

Addy & Balou- shrimpy doodles

October 14, 2008 – 5:00 pm

More new dog images as promised!

These guys are Addy and Balou- miniature goldendoodles, or ’shrimpy doodles’ as I like to call them. Addy looks like a weird blend between a wire-haired daschund, golden retriever and gsp. Her mom says she is of ‘questionable’ breeding, hee hee.

Nichole refers to these blue sky shots as my ‘high fashion photos’.

FYI: this shoot was mostly for Addy, which is why most of these shots are of her, but of course I had to take some of her buddy Balou since he was there.

I have been shooting straight into the sun a lot lately. It’s become a strong enough obsession that if I see the sun while photographing a dog, I try and position the dog between myself and the sun. And yes, you guessed it, I love lens flare. By the way, I did some research on shooting into the sun, and the consensus is it’s only damaging to your eyes- not your image sensor. Anyone care to refute the evidence I found in my research?

I was photographing Addy with her mom (that’s Ballou pictured there), when I turned and looked over at her ‘man-friend’. “Oh wow” I thought. “Um, excuse me, can I take your picture?” I asked. He happily obliged, and I was happy he did.