A weekend marathon...

tirediron · Nov 29, 2011

in the form of my annual charity gig, shooting 'Pets with Santa'. Altogether 235 sessions in a total of ten hours over two days and just over 300 animals in total. For those of you who don't feel like doing the math, that's an average of 2 minutes and 34 seconds/ session.

15 1/2 hours of editing and sorting later, I've got just shy of 800 final images, with eight accidentally cropped paws/tails. In the end, it helped to raise over $3000 for a very worthwhile cause. Feels good too when people tell you that they came back especially because they liked their pictures from last year or heard that they got something a little more than a single 4x6 'insta-print' for their donation.

I'm tired!

Derrel · Nov 29, 2011

That is really,really nice to read about! Sounds like your good work is really worth crowing about, and that things went almost purrfectly. I'd be barking at the moon after seeing that many furbabies over one weekend, but then you Canadians as a society have on the whole displayed the mental toughness to be able to sit through entire hockey games, week after week without flinching, so...even though this weekend gig was a real bear, you were able to help raise over $3,000 for a worthy cause! Good on you! Now, go take that flea collar wristband off, mmmkay???

tirediron · Nov 29, 2011

Well put sir!

mwcfarms · Nov 29, 2011

Haha that's awesome John, great job. Hopefully we can see some of the adorable little fur babies.

rub · Nov 29, 2011

Im exhausted just reading your post - good job!

camz · Nov 29, 2011

Woot woot! I got my Santa gig this saturday. Good stuff John!

kundalini · Nov 29, 2011

Well done John. :thumbsup:

tirediron · Nov 30, 2011

A sample from the weekend...

and the recipient of most, if not all of the funds, 'Max'...

a stray who lost a fight with a car on a local highway, and has already had several sessions in surgery, with more needed.

Sammie_Lou · Nov 30, 2011

Awesome work - but it could be better...(I only say this because I don't see any Golden Retrievers in those pictures! lol)...this is really something that I hope to be able to do someday. I'd like to do events like this as well as going into shelters/rescues to take pictures of their adoptable animals for their websites. Having great professional looking photos that really show their personalities could help animals get adopted.

tirediron · Nov 30, 2011

Thanks everyone!

The best moment of the whole weekend was the Great Pyrenees (almost 200 pounds of him) who was under the mistaken impression that he was a toy poodle and jumped on Santa's lap.

(Sammie there were LOTS of Goldens!)

mwcfarms · Nov 30, 2011

I think one of those Santa's is an imposter.

Cute pups and looks good. I too want to see some Goldens but will settle for the flat coated retrievers.

tirediron · Nov 30, 2011

Yes, we had to get a pinch-hitter in on Sunday. That was Tom's first time ever playing Santa, and he did a great job, but he didn't quite have the appearance of Roger, who is a professional Santa.