Paddy

Its always worth keeping your camera handy. I was recently sitting in a new café “The Old Fire Station” in Carlisle with my friend Andy McKay. He was accompanied by his little friend “Paddy”, a cocker spaniel and the half Sister of my own Cockerpoo (same Mum).

The opportunity was just too much to ignore and so grabbing my Canon EX430-II flash gun and attaching the ST-E2 Wireless unit to the camera I started taking snaps.

Now when doing a proper photo shoot of an animal I spend quite a lot of time setting the shot and the lighting up. But this was a totally ad-hoc spur of the moment opportunity. Even then I knew that I didn’t want to have a harsh, front on lighting and so I made use of the remote sender by holding the flash up and to the left of Paddy. It really created some lovely highlights on her black coat and a nice twinkle in her eye.

It just goes to show that a photo opportunity can come at any time and in any place. Paddy, as usual, was revelling in the attention and within minutes had a crown of admirers wanting to stroke her.

I’m a believer in the old acronym of RIRO or Rubbish In Rubbish Out and so trying to get the shot right in the camera and a small amount of post production work is always preferred to a poor shot and a lot of post production.

On both of these shots there was very little to do apart from a little white balance correction due to the ambient lighting in the café and a bit of level adjustment in a few places.

Overall a really enjoyable way to have fun and a coffee at the same time.