General Photography Observations, Instructions, and Information about Vintage Cameras and Photographic Techniques from this Photographer's Unique Historical Perspective Spanning Fifty Years Experience within Various Genres. Includes posts: Vintage camera information, Old cameras, Single Lens Reflex Cameras, Cameras, Twin Lens Reflex Cameras, TLR, Medium Format, 6x6, 4x4, 120 film, 127 Film, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Rollieflex, Japanese, German, Super Slides, 4x4, TLR, Medium Format Rangefinder, Range finder, Large Format. Photographer Douglas Patrick Wright Provides an Interesting Personal Slant with his Personal Insight Into Half Century of Personal Photography Experience Including his own Transition from Film to Digital. Although never intended as such this Weblog has become an important Resource in its Own Right Regarding Vintage Cameras--as Consulted by Photographers, Historians, and Collectors, Due in Part to the Photographer's Personal Use and Period Comments.
My earliest photographs were oriented toward storytelling. My mom was a writer. My dad was an advanced amateur photographer back in a day when photography was the high-tech photography of choice of the technically-inclined. Life Magazine, Look, and the Saturday Evening Post were picture vehicles that told the news in storied form with pictures. I had aspirations of becoming one of those photographers. Little did I understand that that particular medium would be so fleeting. Televison and moving photography supplanted them before I was even an adult. But I had already become a committed photographer for several newspapers. A savvy old newspaper editor taught me the importance of each photograph "telling a story".
I adapted my story pictures to my own stylized portraits of life in snapshots. People liked this style well enough for me to support my family for a good number of years, until I evolved and moved on to another aspect of my career. Still, I almost habitually seek to capture the life stories that unfold around me. The commonplace inevitably becomes cherished memories. Digital technology is especially adaptable for capturing our life stories.
There is something about freezing a moment in time for our later reflection that is lost in video capture. The ease of keeping an ongoing journal as it happens, along with our written thoughts, that makes it seem unimaginable to not participate in this process.
I sometimes fancy that these images and thoughts will mean something to future generations and perhaps help them in some way to not have to repeat the same mistakes that we make--or even give them a leg-up legacy of what did work--a blueprint of sorts for how to live effectively. I think artists have had similar aspirations since it all began. Else, what does it matter? I think we have a good shot now of succeeding in this. But I have always been an optimist.
I found myself posting advice as it was requested on a Facebook photography page regarding family portraits including off-lease dogs. I realized that this may interest my readers--AND that it might require more space than would be prudent on FB. I copied and pasted what I wrote. I will add to it when I get a few minutes later.
I love dogs and I have always enjoyed working with families with dogs large or small or multiples in combination. They are certainly challenging. I am now largely retired, but I do actually miss this kind of work. I prolly don't have to tell you that dogs are unpredictable. Being a "dog person" may help, but the key in my estimation lies primarily in the owner's ability to control their pets. Assign them this responsibility with some discussion ahead of time. Don't get snookered into owning this responsibility as it is not yours--ever--unless maybe you are a professional dog handler or have one working for you. On the other-hand, just as with working with kids may require a trick or two, working with dogs may too. ~ Actually some of the same techniques may work with dogs as well--such as using a special whistle or sound or meow or bark or squeak-toy to get an expression or their attention when everyone else is ready. Break sessions into multiple briefer attention periods--even if it requires several. ~ Be realistic regarding time, not making the entire session too long, but neither boxing yourself in with too little time or undue pressure to get finished. By properly prepping your people subjects about your directing cues and expectations in advance and reminding them just prior to the shoot, you can get them all helping you, sometimes by NOT helping you; let the assigned family member ALONE get the animals generally positioned, and then leaving it to you to gain the attention for individual shots. ~ Monitoring their own expressions and eyes on your or wherever you want them will be up to the people, while you monitor and direct the pet's attention with your noises and what-not. Get odds working in your favor by taking numerous shots--by "feel"--as well as utilizing burst shutter release features after some. Edit the results heavily, eliminating any marginal shots prior to showing them.
Basic knowledge of dog's social pack instincts may help you manage a photo shoot involving them. Dogs often fit into the family pack in such a way that they recognize one or more family hierarchy with the Alpha and Beta male or females being the head honcho. If one family member has primary care or ownership over the dog, this person may be held in a higher level of authority by their pet. Although these dynamics can often be determined by observation, it is a good idea to ask ahead of time who feeds the dog(s) or who it" belongs" to. Male or female animals sometimes have a more protective nature over the opposite sex family member whom they regard as their immediate superior--and they often show protective natures towards children in general. Dog will generally show protective behavior over any member of the family. It is wise to ask if these pets ever aggressive toward strangers.
There is a whole discussion that could be had regarding properly directing your subjects. But in this post suffice it to say that you should keep your hands off of your subjects. Rarely, upon gaining permission, it may be okay to lightly touch a subject on the shoulder or arm or poke them lightly with a knuckle in the small of the back while positioning them, but it is best to convey your wishes by example. Learn to turn you own body in sympathetic direction mimicking how you want them to pose--turned in the same direction as they are, in order to make it right-reading to them. Any touching or even moving close to them may be met by their dogs as hostile behavior and they may respond in kind.
If you are lucky, the family dogs will be socialized to regard anyone who has gained favor of the family as okay--but be aware that protective behavior is natural and may even surprise family members.Just watch them to read their reactions. Once you have determined the pack dynamics as much through the dog's eyes as you feel you can, try to position the dogs next to one or more of the family members most likely to command the dog's respect. The exception to this might be if the dog is so enamored by the unusual attention of being next to the pack leader that the dog is distracted and constantly is turning tor looking oward this person. The following dynamics may help explain this tendency.
My dad liked animals well enough, but having been raised during the Great Depression, Dad had a different perspective regarding the role of animals. Dad trained hunting dogs during his lifetime. Dogs served a useful purpose. He was never mean cruel to them, but he did not often exhibit loving behavior toward them or pet them unless he was specifically conveying approval. He seldom even spoke to our family pets. Dad would have just as soon kept all dogs outside, but due to extremes in weather, it became necessary at times for our outside dogs to become inside dogs if they were to be kept by us. Still, with my dad, dogs had very specific boundaries while when kept inside.
Dad seldom spoke or showed any other attention to these dogs unless he was gruffly correcting or issuing commands to them. Our dogs often did not know how to act around Dad, so they usually avoided him or would lay down behind his chair or well out of his way. Dad did not feed the dogs, the kids or Mom did. Dad was a calm man of few words, and yet their was never any mistake as to who was the Alpha dog in our pack. When Dad came home from work, any dogs we had became animated and obviously happy to see him, even though he seldom even acknowledged them. And yet our dogs seemed as if they would have nervous break-downs trying to please him whenever he spoke to them.
I used to wonder why, since my siblings and I were all about taking care of the dogs and feeding them and playing with them or taking them outside when necessary, the dogs adored my dad so much. They jumped to please him. This is an example of pack behavior. Our dogs instinctively knew who called the shots, who was boss, and who they owed their ultimate allegiance to. They observed our usually obedient behavior when Dad asked us to do something. The dogs also knew that Mom had authority over us--and them. Mom was outwardly kind to the dogs, and her higher pitched tones and softer voice may also have been perceived as less authoritative, but the dogs still knew that they'd best behave when she spoke to them.
Understanding such canine pack behavior can help understand how the mere proximity of certain members of the family may affect a dog's posing behavior. You can use this to your advantage. You don't have to be a dog trainer or a dog psychologist, but being aware of such dynamics can be used to your advantage while directing family portraits when family dogs are involved. If you position one of the care- givers such as the children next of the dog, he or she may be best equipped to manage the dog without unduly distracting it.
As I mentioned previously, you cannot count on a dog's attntion span to be very long. I have often refered to the advisability of grabbin g whatever initial shots as you can when covering rare new situations or other unusual events. I have probably cited an instance before when my wife and I were staying in a primitive campground A-frame Cabins just outside of Denali Park in Alaska. It was in late June so the daylight hours were very long. We had enjoyed a good day of adventure and good food at the only restaurant in miles and had slept soundly until something woke me up in the wee hours of the morning. It was dusky daylight and the perfect weather was perfect. I looked up to see a big face moose face peering at us through the front side window.
As a young photographer I used to imagine such events and practice for them. I would practice changing film with different kinds of cameras with one hand with the camera in my lap as I drove. I would do the same blind-folded until I new every click and nuance of every camera I owned in order to be prepared for unexpected news events that might present themselves. But by this time, I was older, and not reliant upon my photography for a living. I was on vacation and I had long-since reconciled that I some life moments could go by without constantly ruining everyone else's time with my compulsion to record everything through my camera lens. But I had not given up on keeping a camera with me during such times.
I worked for Canon as an Area Sales Manager at this time, and I had somehow snagged a pretty nice little Canon point-and-shoot film camera that i tried to keep with me constantly. I had not rehersed all the nuances of its operation as I once made a practice--but by this poi/nt in my life I was an seasoned photograPehr who had seen m y share of action in the field and I suppose once you rehearse for things like that and establish certain basic procedures, you don't just forget them--so in that sense I suppose that my instincts were still intact.
Without thinking much, I did what I had trained myself to do. I siezed the first shots without much concern for details. I moved very little to keep from startling the moose andI took a few shots, but she was still spooked and began to trot off. I got up and followed. I don't recall if I put pants and shoes on or not. There were only a few other guests the campground and no one else was up, so I may not have. But I know that I would ahve been making the necessary adjustments to the little compact canon camera to make sure I got the best pictures I could. But come what might, I had gotten something to remember preserve this event to corroborate this fun story life story. By then I saw that the cow had a calf nearby. Who knows what drives a wild moose to look through a remote A-frame window near Mount Mckinley, but when it happens, you cannot take very long fiddling with the camera, if you expect to get any picture at all.
This approach, to a less urgent degree, is how I approach most photographic events--with the thought that nothing much in life repeats itself exactly--so you have to grab what you can while it isbeing presented. It may get better, but it often goes to heck very quickly. This is not an observation that i can claim as my own, also I learned it for myself. It is a derivation of the those principles sometimes called Murphy's Law--one of which is that if anything can go wrong it will. Honestly I am an optomist, but a certain orientation in reality can prepare you to, well, prepare yourself. Being thusly prepared, you may in fact be able to minimize many initially fated poor outcomes. When it comes to photographing anything, especially subjects as unpredictable as a mixture of dogs and people, you'll want to get some shots behind you before you start tryin g to orchestrate aligning the Moon with the Sun and the Stars. The latter is an ideal for which you will always want to strive, but you must start with where you are at the moment and build on that.
With this mind-set, realize that the more live subject that you have in any given group portrait, the less are your odds of capturing all of them in even one photograph with an expression suitable to each one of them--much less all of them together. This can be prtally helped by taking many frames and limiting the numbers of changed sets.
By giving more thought than you may usually do in advance about the placement of your subjects within the setting and using available props, you can limit the amount of time changing poses and rearranging the group and a,low more time for taking more frames of each pose. This is always important, but it becomes essential when working with the limited attention spans of the animals. Take advantage tot the tendency that animals will have to settling-in sitting or lying at the feet or standing between the appropriate family mebers. The fewer gross changes in the set you have to do the better. You always want to think through and give due consideration for enhancing the positive qualities of your subjects and deemphazing those qualities about which they may be sensitive such as wieght and size when considering placement, but the more of this you can do in advance of the session will facilitate efficient use of time and movement when it is most critical. It will help you to work fast.
For example, as with any group, sub-sets that may be desired such as the children only should flow into one another until the whoe group is assembled and then end the session. The parents only, or parents with each child individually--should be minimized when possible or certainly steamlined into as few movements as possible--such as first the kids, add the dogs, add Mom and Dad and end--instead of the whole family, with the dogs, then the children with the dogs, then the whole family again without the dogs, or the kids without the dogs. Start with the fewest subjects and then build onto it. Just think it through in that way--in advance.
Other caveats include, realizing that if you whistle or smack or otherwise seek to engage a dog to get its attention may also be accidentally calling the dog over to you. This can happen when you spend the time gettin gthe grop together in the correct position, carefully add the dogs, get the right position, provide the correct directions, and then in an effort to get the dog to look at you, you smack or whistle--and the dog thinks you are calling him and off he goes to lick your hand. You have to go through gettin g the dog back in place. This can often happen anyway. If it does, it does. Be prepared. Be patient. But try to consider the effect each of your actions could have in advance.
In the end, it is what it is--as it has become popular to say. Preparation and planning always makes it better. Sometimes it goes according to hoyle, but as John Lennon was credited with saying, life is what happens while we are making plans. If nothing seems to work, if the people argue about who is to control the dogs, if sis has to leave for work unexpectedly in five minutes, if the dog eats your squeaky toy--be ready to change things up and go with the flow and make lemonade. Dogs even less than people, can be regimented. They are what they are. Go with it.
In the final analasis, it may be good to remember that in a generation or two, probably less, those subjects that will matter most, will be the people. Make sure you get good pictures of the people. The dogs will not be very critical regarding the pictures.
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Until automatic ordering is in place, please email me with your request for written permission and/or prices for using these images. Include your Company or Personal Name under which images will be used and a brief but full description of how you wish to use photograph(s)--listed by the image number. If you are in need of a particularly themed photograph, please contact me with a description of your needs, as I have several million photographs that remain unlisted and unpublished.
Please DO ask for my very reasonable prices and send special requests for photographs to meet your needs. I also have Themed Posters and LTD Edition and Original Images (Includes Negative and/or Only Digital File), and One-of-a-Kind Photographs available for Collectors. Regards, D. Patrick Wright