About A Dog Photography in St. Paul, Minneapolis & St. Cloud MN | 52 Weeks is a blog circle with a theme for every week (which means we all link to each other, links are found at the end of the post).
Mmmm… snacks!
Those tasty little morsels found between meals, sometimes an indulgence, sometimes just for a big of a boost, often for both. Bender rather enjoys snacks. Cucumber ends, radish slices, lettuces and spinach leaves, carrots, cheese, table scraps, most people food and dog biscuits (aka cookies).
Eating snacks is easy. Catching snacks seems to be a bit of a variable (cookies caught a fair percentage of time, cucumber ends or radish slices the brace for impact happens and the item boops him in the face). Inspired by German photographer Christian Vieler’s “Dogs Catching Treats” series, we decided to invite the strobe flash to help capture catching snacks.
Take 1.
Mid day, light from the window behind Bender, strobe with a softbox to my right, little speedlight setup to trigger off the strobe’s flash of light. Started with carrots. Onward to cookies. Freezing motion was tricky (turns out ambient light is the culprit). Geez this is CHALLENGING! The timing of the click of the shutter, the toss of the treat while looking through the viewfinder and framing Bender and focusing – all performed at the same time. Multitasking at its best!
Also, Bender looks like a Gremlin…
Take 2.
Day 2. Evening, lights off except the TV. Kibble and cookies were the snacks of choice. Poor Bender couldn’t hardly see the flying snacks in the glow of the TV, so the overhead light was flipped back on. Timing was a bit off at first, which meant we had a lot of treat faces but none with the gaping maw full of stringy spit.
One of the cool bonuses to treats when the strobes are setup – Bender thinks its a bit fun and moreso rewarding to position himself in front of the source of the lights. Doesn’t mean he looks thrilled to have his picture taken (which means no ears or mid up giving him a slightly pathetic pouty look) but it means he’ll hold his place and tolerate being photographed. Even if the end result is utterly hilarious!
Next visit Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati, the San Francisco Bay Area, and destinations nationwide to see how what snack time is like out in her neck of the woods!