Camo Dog!

Dog Blog Post #308: Today's Daily Shoot was:

Make a low contrast photograph today.

I read somewhere that a Zebra is a high contrast picture, and a low contrast picture is a polar bear in a snow storm.

Hmmm.... ok. That helps. I think.

So during a brief window of time I had before lunch, I trotted out "the set", the camo fabric from the other day, the boy's puffy brown pillow, and my son's camo snuggie (which you might remember from the Mr. Tacky Knick-Knack shot.)

I grabbed Zachary (being the darker of the two), draped him in the snuggie (he is so patient) and was barely 10 shots in when my lunch window came to a screeching halt.

No worries - the pictures looked clear, and so I was reasonably satisfied, until later, when I got on the computer, and downloaded the shots, and saw the histograms...

Rats.

You know, my little point-n-shoot does have the option to display a histogram of what the lens is viewing, in real time. It's about 1/4" square, and sits in the upper-right corner of the LCD. Most of the time, I keep it turned off so I can see more of the image I am getting ready to take.

And today was no different.

Which is a shame, since had I had it on, I would have noticed that my low-contrast pictures weren't actually coming up out that low contrasty.

Nope, I didn't discover that little tidbit of information until later, when I got on the computer, and uploaded the shots, and finally saw those histograms.

Fail.

So I went out into the living room, which still had good natural light, and proceeded to snap 30 or more pictures of paws, backs, sides, and tails - general fur pictures, bitey-face pictures, why-are-taking-pictures-of-us pictures... and I figured somewhere in there, would be something "good enough".

Fail.

Desperate now, the sun quickly descending, totally devoid of ideas, I grabbed the boys and ran out back, banging off a slew really dull pictures of them staring up at me.

Fail.

Now was getting ticked. I'd snapped 71 pictures and didn't think I had a thing to show for it.

One... More... Time

I grabbed the soft plushy blanket, Henry (he blends best), and prayed there was still enough light coming through my north-facing window for just a few more shots. I turned on every light in the room, laid on the floor with the little tripod, and asked Henry to do his best "Demure" pose.

I knew I had it after the first shot, I banged off about 20, then hauled off the computer to pick the ones with the lowest contrast.

What should have taken me 15 minutes took me 15*4 minutes, 95 pictures, and enough cookies to throw Zachary's diet out of whack for the entire weekend.

That said, I love my failed Camo-Dog pictures, and I'm even pretty happy with the low contrast ones (although it might be stretch to call them low contrast.)

Whew!

(And just think, I get to start all over with a new assignment tomorrow!)

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