Light and Dark

Dog Blog Post #387: From the Daily Shoot...

Craft a photo using strong contrast between very light and very dark areas.

I'm pretty sure I've done this one before - perhaps even with this same solution (see above). I soooo wanted to get the rich tones of Zachary's fur plus the rich tones of the hardwood floor in the late afternoon sunbeam (which is there for about 5 minutes!) and the pitch black background...

BUT

It wasn't meant to be. No matter how many sliders I pushed or pulled, I just couldn't turn a surprisingly dreary Zachary into something more glowey. I admit to being perplexed as to why he wasn't glowey straight out the camera. Perhaps I had some knob or dial set wrong (although I'm shooting RAW now as this hard disk is substantially larger than the one it replaced.)

Anyway, after spending waaaaaaay to long pushing and pulling and trying this and trying that (all racked up to "learning experience") I gave up and made it B&W, which avoids the whole color problem, as I don't think there's anything wrong with the lighting/composition - just the color.

Here are a few other attempts, taken earlier in the day as I wasn't sure I was going to catch my elusive sunbeam...

The one above was "fun with Vignette" - which, in addition to improving the washed out look that goes with shooting in midday, turned Zachary a lovely rich (nearly Beau) color. The sort of color I was hoping for him in that darned sunbeam.

And yes, Zachary is looking for his Lacrosse Ball. I believe that's #2 that went in the drink.

Here he is looking for #3 (just a few minutes later)...

#3 is still at the bottom of the pond, as by this point, the water was so stirred up and mirky that I couldn't see it. We will commence a rescue tomorrow at dawn. Or when I get out there. Whichever comes last (and it's a pretty safe bet it won't be dawn!)

And finally, a shot of Henry...

Ok... not quite finally. Here's finally - a non-dog picture for Scavenge Challenge ("Hooked".)

I have no idea why I liked that shot, but I do. Something about the muted colors and the strong lines, perhaps? Who knows.

Editor's Note: Creating Rainbows... I turned on the hose to spray, and wandered around the perimeter until I saw a rainbow. Rainbows are formed when the angle of the sun hits the water droplets "just so", splitting the light like a prism does. It helped to get fairly close to the ground as the spray wasn't all that high (and neither was the rainbow!) I then went inside and cleaned the clear filter that sits in front my lens off, as a puff of wind left little specks all over it!

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