Day 107—The Sheer Joy Of A Dog’s Life

Mady will be with me for two more weeks and I suspect that she will be featured in many more of my blog posts while she’s visiting. So, once again, heeeeeeeeere’s Mady! When I got home from the gym, she wanted to go outside and beckoned me to join her. She didn’t have to “go” she just wanted to play. So I grabbed my camera and took a few shots as she lolled in the morning sun, grass between the pads of her feet. Sheer joy.

Focal Length 50mm
Manual mode
ISO 640 (I forgot to reset)
f/16
1/320
SOOC

Then, I realized that I could use her to pose for me for today’s daily challenge, “open shade” which isn’t a topic but a lighting scenario, an odd choice for the group. Fortunately for me, one of the homework assignments I have for the two-part lighting class I’m taking is to take a photograph in open shade, so I can kill two birds with one stone. I realized that the fence was creating an area of open shade so I sat in the sun while Mady posed in the shade of the fence with lots of light coming from above. I set my camera to Aperture Priority and took a few shots. I’m struggling with composition lately. After last week’s lesson on composition in the other class I’m taking, I realized that I tend to position my subject smack dab in the middle of the frame instead of considering the rule of thirds. Since we can’t crop for the class, I’m becoming much more aware of my shortcomings. But, I’m not necessarily improving. The first shot of Mady in the shade fills the frame, which I like, but her eye, the main focus of this shot, is smack dab in the middle again. Since I was using Aperture priority, I didn’t notice that the shutter speed had dropped a bit which I believe is why the first shot is slightly out of focus. I moved slightly for the second shot which is in much better focus (Shutter speed 1/60) and Mady is offset a bit. The background is lousy and I should have used a bigger aperture to blur the background but, I didn’t. I really like the intensity of her gaze in this one, which is probably the one I’ll use for my class homework assignment.

Focal Length 50mm
Aperture Priority
ISO 200
f/6.3
1/40
SOOC

Focal Length 50mm
Aperture Priority
ISO 200
f/6.3
1/60
SOOC