All he wanted to do was just relax in the yard, but then the puppy came along and just wouldn’t stop biting his face. His head is lifted in some of these because she can’t bite his face or ears if he does that. Unless she gets up and climbs on him. Then he tried moving to the other side of the yard, but she just followed him. I don’t want to call her a jerk, but she’s a jerk.
As always, be patient with pets, they don’t know what a camera is, and they just want you to be happy. For these photos I just let the chaos play out. The big guy decided to relax in the yard, and I knew the puppy would do what the puppy does best – play. These two actually play well together. The rest was just getting on the proper angle and since they were playing, they didn’t really care where I moved.
For lighting, this was 100% the sunlight. Sure, the shadow placement wasn’t the best but bad shadow placement is better then losing the action in this situation. There is no guarantee they’d keep playing if I got them to move and there is even less guarantee that they would stay in the area that would have been ideal. So, I just went with what they were offering, and it worked out well. Making these decisions and gambles are part of photography.