Dog Photography in the River Tees, Darlington!

Hairy Dog Photography is always happy to travel when it comes to capturing your dog's best side, and last Friday found me flying down the A1 to Piercebridge, a lovely, sleepy little village near Darlington.  The very lovely Joanne plumped for the less than half price, framed print offer which ends today, but which can be extended until the end of June if you mention this blog when booking your shoot.  You can see all the shots here on the dog portraiture website.

Sadly, the eldest spaniel has cancer, and Joanne thought it'd be nice to have a set of professionally taken photos for her husband.  The brief was simple, get some shots of the spaniel by himself, and some of all three dogs at once.  My heart always sinks a little when a client asks for dogs to be shot together - unless they're all very well trained, it can be close to impossible!  Here are some of the results...

These dogs all loved their sticks :-)

Just a quick techie, photogeek note: the Nikon 70-200VR lens makes photographing dogs so much easier - once the VR has settled on a subject, pin sharp results can always be expected, even wide open at f2.8.

A spot of sunshine on the way back to the car makes all the difference (quite glad they weren't getting in my car though!!).

All three dogs in the water at once - check!  Joanne quite liked the idea of a montage of six or so photos, so I've put together a quick first draft which I'm quite pleased with (below).

If you'd like a dog portrait shoot, or if you're planning a day out with the family and the dog which you'd like to have captured in pictures, please do just call me on 07866127732 or use the CONTACT page on the website, even if it's just to have a chat!

Two days, two dogs!

Hairy Dog Photography, based in the North East if England.  Specialising in contemporary lifestyle portraiture of your dogs and families.


Toby's photoshoot took place at his house in Sunderland on Saturday.  Believe it or not, he's 12 years old - you wouldn't know it to look at him!  Dogs are often at their best in the familiar environs of their own home.  They are relaxed and at ease, surrounded by their families and familiar sights and smells.  This was certainly true of Toby, who behaved like a true gent throughout!  You can see the whole shoot HERE on the website.

He didn't seem at all phasedf by the big black backdrop in his living room - in fact he trotted straight onto it and sat, looking expectantly at the studio light above him.

Seriously, what a cutie!  And as you can see, he doesn't look a day over six!

And earlier tonight, I got the studio lights out again to check over some issues I've been having with the remote radio triggers.  Once I'd sorted that out, I thought it might be fun to try and shoot a white dog against a white backdrop.  So the living room became a 'studio' within five minutes, and Kasper the hairy, white dog was pressed intop service as a model...

Kapser's not too keen on the whole studio experience, so I kept it short, and treat-filled!

This was really just a technical exercise - I wanted to challenge myself a bit (and the poor dog).  Just for reference, here's a photo of the lighting setup for Kasper's shoot;

In the diagram above, the key light was brought as close a possible to Kasper, without terrifying him, to give as soft and even a light as possible.  The fill light (just visible on the right of the door) is a silver reflector brollie, just to fill in the shadows and give catchlights in the eyes.  The brollie light behind the backdrop is set to nearly three quarters of its full capacity, to blow out the background.