And now for the scariest thing of all: a toddler with a puppy. Actually, the horror photo for this week needs more time to bake. Check back Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s a puppy photo shoot.
That background wasn’t the intended background. I wanted a red background but since the red backdrop was sitting pretty in a box at some other location, I went with what I had. But nothing ever goes according to plan and part of photography is just rolling with what plays out. This is especially true for 4-year-olds and puppies and even more true when you mix 4 year olds and puppies.
Obviously with a 4-year-old and a puppy, posing was out the window. However, the scenario can still be manipulated. For example, the rocking chair controlled the direction the action would take place in. Putting the puppy in the child’s lap gave two scenarios – a calm puppy resting in a lap or a puppy on the move leaving a lap. In these scenarios, don’t try to control the chaos just try to guide it along in a direction that you can work with.
We followed this all up with a 1-year-old mastiff with the 4-year-old and for some reason it ended up looking like she and her dog were about to drop their next rap album.
This worked out well. I used a 3-light setup. Two strobes: one with a rectangle softbox and a grid aimed at their faces at an angle (key light) and the other with a long softbox and a grid aimed at them directly to their left (fill light). Finally, a third speedlight up at an angle behind them on a boom stand (hairlight).