Cookie's Montage

[lucian]

I said I was going to try my hand at pet photography. What an experience!

I figured I do a couple of test shots so I wasn't going to be too very concerned about anything. You know, just a few shots to get the ball rolling and then later do something a bit more formal, better even.

So, I got Cookie into my office and asked her if she would pose for some pictures. She seemed amiable about this and sat real pretty. I told her we were going to do this outside in the daylight and off she went. I should have gotten a hint from this.

I got an old blue blanket. I draped it over the back yard fence while explaining to Cookie what we were going to do. I went back into the house to get my camera and my wife to act as an assistant. When we got back outside all we saw was a blur of blue making great circles around the yard.

Off we go chasing this crazy beagle and blue blanket. Of course the neighbours are watching the crazy yankee again. Never a dull moment for the neighbours. We're really quite entertaining at times.

Finally after about 20 minutes we get the blanket. This time I clothes pin it to the fence, dried grass and leaves and all. For another frustrating 30 minutes I snap pictures of Cookie as Karen tries to get her to stay still. More entertainment for the neighbours.

I thought that it was going to be a total bust until after I got the images downloaded. Out of about 15 images I got two that were almost good enough to call portraits - centered in the background. But I got a half dozen which were good enough to PhotoShop - a little creativity and a cute subject can go a long way.

All images shot on the Olympus E-20 on Program and autofocus. Thank heavens for autofocus. The original was 8x10 at 300dpi. I think reducing the size and saving for the wed the images got soft.