Doggy Portrait Photographs from the East Preston Village Dog Show

The East Preston annual fun novelty dog show was held on the last day of the village festival week. This year it seemed like the entire village attended with their dogs with nearly every breed represented. The show was held on the village green and had been organised by the village festival committee, who did a great job. Mike, a local vet, had his work cut out to judge the dogs across 10 different classes which ranged from The Best Pedigree Dog to the Dog With The Happiest Face! With cream teas, locally brewed ale, a barbecue and even doggy ice cream being served the event was a great success. Further info about the East Preston Festival can be found here.

HOW I CREATED MY DOG PHOTOGRAPHS

Luckily for my home village of East Preston the weather looked great for the annual dog show. The sun was shining and with only a few white clouds in the sky the outlook looked good. Having said that ask any pro photographer and we will often prefer a dull and overcast day to take photos. The reason is because its much easier to control when the light is flat and even. The people (or dogs in this case) don't squint and you don't have the problem of trying to control the contrast. However, I have picked up some tricks of the trade along the way so I was confident it would be fine. Anyway it was June and the thought of a spending the day doing what I love in the summer sun sounded good to me. With weather like this, I knew it was going to be busy and a slight challenge for me, so I quickly loaded my camera gear and left the house. I first heard about the show a few weeks beforehand and since then had been planning how I would create my photos. I had a couple of options but decided in the end to create a set of doggy portraits! 

I wanted to create a set of fun dog photographs of as many of the attending dogs as possible. The only proviso, No Humans Allowed. I just wanted to concentrate on the dogs and try, if I could to capture their characters in my photos. In the end I decided to keep things as simple as possible. I knew that I would not have a lot of time to take each photo so (as is often the case), I opted to travel light so that I could work quickly. Occasionally there was cloud cover so I left my sun diffuser (ideal on a sunny day) in the car deciding instead that a flash should do the trick and soften any harsh shadows if needed. And so armed with the following kit (Nikon 28 - 70mm zoom lens, a single Nikon speed light on an extension lead and a Nikon D800) I started taking my photos. In the end the light was perfect and I took most of the photographs without any flash at all. The colours were vibrant, the dogs were happy and although I soon learnt to check the grass for wet patches before kneeling down to take a photo is advisable, I had a great day and I am really pleased with the photos. 

I hope you enjoy my Dog Portrait Photographs. If you like my work please subscribe to my newsletter. I am professional photographer and along with assignments for my clients, I often work on my own photography projects. I publish these story telling photo essays here on my blog and joining my e-newsletter allows you to keep up to date with my work and the stories I am working on. Till next time, Scott the photographer.