Dog Shots by Charlotte Reeves
When I look back through the thousands (or so it feels like!) of digital photos on my computer, there is a face that pops out of the photos everywhere – my kelpie Kate! I love taking photos of Kate but being a beginner photographer on the spectrum of skill I know my photos could be a lot better! So imagine my excitement when Charlotte Reeves just released her newest dog photography guide Dog Shots (E-Book RRP $59) a recipe book of 30 fresh and fun ideas, to help you learn dog photography skills.
The Book
Dog Shots is a 60 page e-book (22mb PDF) readable on Adobe Acrobat Reader and on most smart phones and tablets that have a PDF viewing app installed. The book is divided up into five sections, each section containing different recipes based around the same theme.
- Action recipes – all about catching those high energy dog moments in the midst of play time or adventures.
- Location recipes – making the most of natural and infrastructure environments to best highlight your dog.
- Expression recipes – containing two of my favourite expressions – puppy dog eyes and the head tilt (I know I’m biased, but a kelpie head tilt is the best!)
- Detail recipes – capturing the tiny details that are so hard to transfer to film.
- Light recipes – how to best utilise natural light to best capture your dog.
The recipes are broken up into a method, settings, gear list and handy hints focusing on the types of shots you want to achieve and a difficulty rating ranging from beginner to more advanced. Each recipe finishes with a checklist that consists of all major points to remember from the section, for a handy in the field reference. Each recipe is designed to get something new from the shot with some oriented towards interacting with the dog, while others concentrate on location or working with light.
The Field Test
After being engrossed in the book and the amazing photos, it was time to test out my new found knowledge! Kate, my Canon SLR and I went out to the wetlands near our house to find some bushland to play in and hopefully capture some magic moments. What struck me straight off about the way Dog Shots has been written and set out, is how many of the points that I wanted to remember I could actually recall! The information is broken down into easy to understand points, which meant smaller bites of information were easier for me to remember while out in the field. The portable e-book makes for a great field guide, as the information you are looking for is easy to locate and skim for any quick reference checks.
The book was also very helpful to me as it had specific Canon and Nikon setting hints and instructions throughout the guide, which meant I could set up my Canon easily to optimise the quality of images I was trying to capture! I would class myself unequivocally as a beginner photographer so I found both the auto setting instructions and manual very beneficial as I could start out optimising my auto settings, and slowly move onto any manual work as I gained confidence.
Having a kelpie, I seem to take thousands of photos of Kate in the aim to just get one which is in focus! Kate is constantly moving while we are out and about, and while I can get her to pose for short amounts of time, just because her body stays still it doesn’t mean her head does! This reason is why I absolutely loved Charlotte’s Action Shot recipe section. This section covered how to get those great in action photos and how to set up your camera to get at least a few in focus shots (in my case anyway!) Setting my camera to burst mode and using my new found knowledge about light, anchoring and positioning I was able to capture some photos of Kate that now hold pride of place as my phone and desktop background.
One of the great things I also found is how generous Charlotte is with her expert knowledge. Once I had my raw photos, I wanted to try my hand at editing them so I could see how much I make the colours pop. Charlotte’s has a YouTube channel in which she puts up free video tutorials on how to edit your photos to get the most out of them and ‘save’ low light images.
I’ve loved working through Dog Shots while out with Kate and my camera. There have been so many photography skills I have picked up that I can apply not only to our adventures but every day photographs. I highly recommend this to anyone with a dog – amateurs and professionals alike! It covers a wide range of information, there is bound to be something for everyone – and their dog!
You can purchase Dog Shots from the Learn Pet Photography website.
