Hairy Dog in the Woods!

Kasper the Hairy Dog Goes Wild in the North East

And there are photographs to prove it...

Jamie Emerson

Hairy Dog Photography - specialist dog and pet photographer in the north east

Langley Street, 

New Herrington

DH4 4LN

07866127732

01915845442

Kasper and I had a fantastic, muddy, slippy woodland walk today.  It's been at least a week since I took any photographs of the poor dog, or even sat him down for a portrait session.  This neglect had to end, so we sallied forth into the north east countryside for a pet portrait session (formerly known as a 'walk').

This is what Hairy Dog Photography does best - I love nothing better than to be out with a dog or two capturing your pets' characters in an environment where they are free to just be themselves.  Some dogs thrive on bounding back and forth, others are happy to lope along and sniff everything.  It doesn't matter - a pet session with Hairy Dog will always give you a beautiful set of photographs to look back on, hang on the wall or just to stick on Facebook!

The countryside round Durham really is rather lovely, and despite the weeks of rain, the paths alongside the River Wear were mostly not too sodden.  I had packed my 50mm lens for use with the Nikon D300s camera, partly for ease of carrying and partly as I am just in love with my 50mm, f1.4 lens.  It's one of the cheapest 'pro' lenses available, weighs very little and gives absolutely stunning results.  Most of the photoshoots I carry out for dog portrait clients involve my 70-200mm VR, f2.8 lens.  It's just the ticket for fast, erratically moving doggies but even at its widest aperture, it doesn't give bokeh like the 50mm f1.4!

Close up portrait of white dog near Durham

That blurry background is what I'm talking about when I say 'bokeh'

The next five photos all use a spot of flash.  The flashgun is set away from the camera and set off using a wireless trigger, controlled by the camera.  It makes it very easy to create a little dramatic light, and is obviously very helpful to a pet photographer in a dark, rainy wood!

Kasper the dog enjoys a pet portrait shoot in the north east countryside

Action shots of dogs are Hairy Dog Photography's speciality

Lurcher sitting by a stile near Durham, north east England.

Action photograph of a dog leaping a style by Hairy Dog Photography

And to finish, just a lovely natural light shot of Kasper walking through the daisies in a patch of sunlight.

Do feel free to get in touch to book a doggy lifestyle portraiture session.  They start at just £40 and I can also provide gift vouchers - what dog owner wouldn't like a gift like that?!

Want to see a whole lot more photos of dogs being doggy?  Have a look here; specialist dog portraits, durham

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!

Dog Portraits strobist style in the North East

iShoot Sniper review, Jamie Emerson at Hairy Dog Photography, Pet and Lifestyle portraiture throughout the North East, tests a set of iShoot Pocket Wizard type radio controlled flash triggers.


About a month ago, Roger at UK Highland Photography was kind enought to send me a pair of iShoot Sniper radio controlled flash triggers for testing and review.  Although I plan to carry out a 'proper' review at a later date, I took them out with me today whilst walking Kasper the hairy dog.

It took me a while to figure out what the buttons do, and they are a bit fiddly for my sausage fingers, but once you work it out, they're actually very simple little units.  They look a LOT like Pocket Wizards.  When on the camera, they do look impressive and that's no bad thing!

For no particular reason, I took my Sigma 10-20mm lens (very wide angle).  With hindsight, perhaps not the best lens to test the triggers with, but hey-ho.

Just for fun, I tried the trigger off camera about 100 feet away, tucked behind a bush (photo above).  You can barely tell, but that's Kasper sitting in that pool of light.  The Sniper fired the flash flawlessly every single time, no hesitation, no failures. 

In the photo above, the flash was badly balanced with the daylight - the flash is very obvious and a harsh shadow is cast behind Kasper.  I quite like the effect though!  In the photo below, I just opened up the apperture by a couple of stops and powered the flash down, to give a slightly more natural portrait.  The shadow is still there, but would almost disappear if a brollie was used, and the flashgun was higher up.

The last photo is supposed to look as if Kasper has walked into a ray of sunshine!  The flash head was zoomed into the body to give a spotlight effect, also known as narrow flash.

So whilst this is by no means a scientific or exhaustive review, here's a quick summary;

Good Points;

• They look good.  Damn good.  And that makes me look good, non?
• They work. They just do.  Without any fuss, mis-fires or annoying beeping noises.
• They have 15 channels, so uncle Bob won't be setting them off using his compact camera flash half a mile away.
• They 'wake up' sleeping speedlights.  This is certainly true of my SB-800s and SB-600s.  This is a great feature - some of my other (cheaper) triggers don't do this.

Bad Points;

• The hotshoe connectors are a very tight fit.  This isn't too bad on the strobe mounted unit, but I really have to wrench the unit to get it off the camera.  Scary tight and definitely needs addressing -I fear for my camera's delicate hotshoe.
• The + and - signs in the battery case are tiny, barely visible in good light and would be a pain in the neck should the batteries need changing in bad light.
• The instructions are on a par with Nikon's own - nonsensical at best.

So all in all, well put together triggers.  More to follow, once I've had the chance to use them some more!