Beer and Biscuits

Dog Blog Post #384: Real Life (the good kind) kept me busy during the "best" part of the day (photographically speaking) leaving me little time to do something with the Daily Shoot assignment of...

TGIF! To celebrate the end of the week, make an artistic shot of your favorite beverage or libation today.

No, despite the fact it says "TGIF", it wasn't the assignment for "today" (which is tomorrow from when this was written) but rather "yesterday" (in relation to the today you are reading it in.)

Huh?

Never mind - I needed to find a beverage, I didn't have much time to do it, and my mind was blank.

Totally blank.

As blank as the dead hard drive.

Well, maybe not quite that blank - but pretty darn close.

I prowled through the house chanting, "beverage, beverage, beverage," to which #1 son kindly suggested I just pull a Diet Coke from the fridge, set it next to a dog, and be done with it.

(Geez... men. No sense of the artistic!)

"Beverage, beverage, beverage..."

In the end, of course, I basically did exactly what he suggested, with a slightly more interesting can, and a whole lot less light to work with than had I done it when he suggested it.

I posted the picture up top, although judging from the early returns (comments) I probably should have have posted the one down below...

Then again, folks might just like the description, "Henry's bummed because Zachary just told him he's underaged."

CM101 Progress Report

FWIW: This shoot satisfied my testing requirement for this week of "Stationary Pose - Down @ 5 feet". They also meet "Props (Zen) - Object nose-high, student < 3 ft away." That's the good news. The bad news (or maybe not) is the shoot is making me reconsider my desire for 3 good shots in 5 tries. While I did get 3 good shots in 5, if you look at how I rated the pictures on a scale of 0-3 with 'X' meaning I deleted it and anything above 0 being "good", you get:

1, 2, 1, 2, 3, X, X, X, 3, 0

The picture at the top of the post was #5 of 10, and the one right above was #9 of 10.

Not listed are the first three shots (all deleted) where I was ignoring the boys and dinking with camera settings to get the most from the lighting I had. FWIW: the camera was on a tripod so I could (a) reduce the shutter speed as the lighting was poor and (b) get in front of the dogs to get "expression".

Anyway, the upshot is that while 3 of 5 is probably a good standard from a test-of-skills viewpoint, in the sense that as a photographer I hope my "model" would listen to me half the time, from an artistic stance it seems a bit tight. What photographer is going to go to a location, get everything set up, and then take just 5 shots and hope one of them is "the right one".

On the other hand, what other numbers do I choose? 5 good shots in 10? 10 in 20? And what's a "good" shot anyway? One where the dog does what I asked may not work out due to lighting, or him blinking, or me (the photographer) jiggling the camera.

Ok... I'm babbling so I'll stop. But don't be surprised if I change the rule on this a bit by next Monday, assuming I can figure out what to change it to!

Editor's Note #1: Thanks for the input about Henry's two "portrait" shots yesterday. For the record, I went with the top (mouth closed) picture.

Editor's Note #2: Someone asked about CM101 - yes, I created it. I was looking for a way to slip some education (sits and downs and stays) into our days that wouldn't have a negative impact on the my fairly limited time. Combining training and photography seemed a good way to go. While I certainly didn't mean for the items to be specific to any one breed, I also wasn't activity looking outside my Golden Retriever box.

And finally, for the non-dog (Our Daily Challenge - The Golden Hour) picture we have...

... and yes, it is Yet Another Mist Bottle shot. :)

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