On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Speaking of not-sucky pictures of my dog.
A brief description of my thinking behind this photo:
I shot with a medium wide 40mm-equivalent lens because I like to go out with one prime at a time, and as my second favorite lens the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 sits on my GH2 quite a lot. I could have just as easily taken a few steps back and shot it with my #1 favorite lens, a medium-long manual OM 50mm f/1.8 from the 1970s. The wide aperture let me fuzz out the background a bit, creating an illusion of depth between the scenery and Max, the subject. The late-day sunlight is hitting him at a low and oblique angle that is almost head-on. This throws every hair and blade of grass into sharp contrast. Light from a setting sun has to travel through a lot of atmosphere, giving it a warm look (dust scatters blue more than red) and making for a more pleasing portrait. One touch that I particularly like is how the darker background isolates Max in an obvious but natural-looking way. One of the hardest tricks in photography is finding a way to set the picture’s ‘subject’ apart from the scenery. People buy wide-aperture lenses in part because selective focus is a great way to isolate a subject (they also make it easier to shoot in low light). However, IMO, people can go a bit overboard. If one eye is in focus and the other eye is not then you should probably stop down a little.
To me the composition is only so-so. It kind of respects the rule of thirds and definitely leaves space in the direction that the subject is moving/gazing, to the point of being rather unbalanced in that direction, but nothing about the framing makes me say ‘wow’. It is just a nice pic of Max that will go into my regular screensaver rotation.
Chat about whatever.
nancy
MAX!
mapaghimagsik
yay. photo nerds. I love using the lower F-stops to isolate the subject, but I agree it can be overdone. I do like the warmer colors a lot and the low angle.
Just looking into radio control of multiple flashes. I’m a novice photo newbie, really.
Moar, please.
geg6
You might as well be speaking Chinese for all I understand any of that. But…
MAXIE! Who’s a good doggie? Max is a good doggie, that’s who!
J.W. Hamner
You take most of your photos of Max at sunset, no? As I don’t take a ton of outdoor shots I had not thought about how much more awesome the lighting is at dawn/dusk until relatively recently. I need to just grab my camera and go for a walk and see what I can get at sunset.
Valdivia
@J.W. Hamner:
Magic Hour :)
Gotta love Max.
PurpleGirl
I agree with Geg6, the technical stuff goes over my head. But… It’s MAX! I love MAX!
yopd1
Can anyone recommend a good method to train a dog not to pull on the leash. We have a 1 1/2 year old Lab/Basset Hound mix that weighs about 50 lbs that we rescued about 9 months ago. I love him, but he refuses to not pull the leash, especially if he sees another dog nearby (he’s friendly with other dogs, he just wants to say hello).
Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I’ve tried stopping when he pulls, changing directions, etc. but nothing sticks with him. He just wants to go where he wants to go.
Keith
What are your thoughts on that new camera where everything is focused and you use an app to pick what is currently focused?
jeffreyw
Speaking about isolating the subject from the background, I’ve always liked this one.
And this one turned out really well.
Tim F.
@yopd1: 1. Pinch collar. If it was painful then trainers, who also love dogs, would not swear by it.
2. Until recently Max was awful about pulling. When he graduated from the pinch collar, which helped a TON, I would stop, make him walk around behind me (to the right) and then sit at my left side whenever he started to pull ahead. If he did it a few times then I would make him down instead. Keep in mind that it might be tougher with a dog that is even part hound.
Mino
I take it that Max is not resting atop a hill. Teh background is giving an illusion of great distance.
Recently I saw an odd, but very effective violation of most rules of composition.
http://www.facebook.com/maratriangle#!/photo.php?fbid=3289059590245&set=a.1286972179311.2037886.1380388385&type=1&theater
Now the crop I saw that was so arresting cut the lion off just below his chin.
rlrr
@yopd1:
Just don’t ask Mitt Romney for dog advice…
Mino
@yopd1: Have you tried a haltie collar?
http://www.google.com/search?q=haltie+collar&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7ADRA_en
gogol's wife
I wuv Max.
Keith
Addendum: I was referring to the Lytro camera.
jeffreyw
@Keith: I have one of those. Alas, it requires Apple OS to work, and I don’t do Macs. They promised a windows app for the camera but nothing is out yet. It’s still in the box.
JGabriel
__
__
Via TPM Front Page:
BREAKING NEWS—4:21 PM ET: HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE VOTES TO HOLD ERIC HOLDER IN CONTEMPT 23-17
No story yet, just the breaking news header.
.
Amir Khalid
Entertainment Weekly reports that retired general and one-time presidential candidate Wesley Clark is hosting a military-themed TV game show. Was R. Lee Ermey not available?
yopd1
@Mino: We use the haltie that goes around his chest. He bit through two halties that went around his nose, along with two leashes. We now use a leash made of the same material as car seat belts.
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Just got my first DSLR a few months back (Canon) and made sure to walk out with Canon’s storied 50mm f1.8 (great glass in low-cost plastic housing, making it a fave budget buy for photog enthusiasts). I love that sucker – it can give you an almost razor-thin depth of field (if that’s what you want) and the prettiest, cleanest bokeh (since you can stick to lower film-speed equivalents).
@Keith:
quote] What are your thoughts on that new camera where everything is focused and you use an app to pick what is currently focused?[/quote]
Those look like very nice little gadgets for what they do. They are kinda pricey, considering the fairly low pixel count (which means don’t look to blow them up very big if you want something to frame – apparently they’re best for small prints and computer desktops only). But if you can swing a dSLR and something more than the typical kit lens, I’d say that’s the way to go, because it seems you get a lot more options on how to compose and shoot your subjects.
Poopyman
@JGabriel: Anybody shocked?
rikyrah
why do your animal pics look normal, while Cole’s look scary?
SatanicPanic
@JGabriel: If anyone knows about being held in contempt, it’s the US House of Representatives.
geg6
@yopd1:
Try a harness or gentle lead. And never let your dog walk in front of you. Always make sure he/she is at your side, not ahead. Stop walking when the dog pulls ahead and don’t move forward again until he/she is at your side. With a gentle lead or harness, you can do a sort of yank (not a hard one!) on the leash when he/she pulls ahead to get the pup back at your side, once the pup realizes that is what you want.
MikeJ
@rikyrah: Maybe his animals look normal and Cole’s look scary.
geg6
@MikeJ:
Hey, now! Rosie and Lily never, ever, ever look scary.
Tunch, however, is another story.
trollhattan
@Tim F.
Excellent shot, and explanation. When did you get the GH2? (I may have missed it, didn’t you have an E-P1 or other Pen model, before?)
Finally bit the µ4/3 bullet with the E-M5. Still in learnin’ phase but I also got a small stack of adapters that let me shoot a small mountain of legacy glass, plus my 4/3 lenses (the latter retaining auto functions).
So far my favorite old lens is a Zeiss 50/1.4. There’s something about the silky smooth focusing….
geg6
@JGabriel:
I, personally, hold the GOP controlled House Oversight Committee and its chairman, Issa, in contempt.
I can haz screaming TPM headlines naow?
Tim F.
@trollhattan: I got the GH2 during Panasonic’s oh shit the OMD is coming and we need to move inventory in a hurry sale last December. $750 for a body and zoom lens was hard turn down.
Boohunney
Wow, Tim, just felt like I had a flashback to photography school. :) Nice photo.
I have a friend that is reinventing herself at photography school currently. They don’t spend as much time discussing the rule of thirds or Kandinsky. My friend and some of her school mates have some pretty interesting framing going on.
trollhattan
@Tim F.:
Sweet! You like it so far? Do you miss IBIS?
Keith
@jeffreyw: Ugh…Apple arrogance. Guess I will wait on it until it is usable (for me).
yopd1
@geg6: I’ve tried that, problem is my wife runs with him, so basically whatever I teach him that night is usually ignored the next day because Mom lets him run. Sounds like I need to get the wife on board first.
Thanks everyone for the advice.
geg6
I know next to nothing about this woman, but as of right this minute, I think I love her:
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/20/wiping_out_for_profit_schools/
Randy P
@JGabriel: Not a total surprise. The issue was discussed at some length in a couple of earlier threads today, this one and this one
Apparently Darrell Issa has been on a fishing expedition, looking for something from Justice that’s incriminating to Obama or Holder on anything. He’s been demanding law enforcement documents which, as I understand it, are explicitly exempt from congressional subpoena by precedent going back at least 30 years.
geg6
@yopd1:
Yes. Consistency is a major factor. He will never learn if you both aren’t reinforcing the rules.
gbear
Yer dog doesn’t give a rat’s pitootie.
Edit: A song for the occasion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMokVXCVyTw
Anne
The lighting-from-the-side thing is key. Subjects lit from the same direction as the camera end up looking flat, whereas with subjects lit from the side, you can see more depth and three-dimensionality. I first learned that lesson with food (which is why food shots with on-camera flash always look anywhere from “meh” to “ew”), but it’s true in general.
Also, in addition to the shifting toward the redder end of the visible spectrum, the fact that evening light gets scattered off the atmosphere means that the light gets softer, more diffuse–sort of acting like a gigantic, natural scrim. Point source light, especially one as strong as the sun, gives you harsh highlights and shadows, which are difficult to capture within a single shot (thus HDR). Put some sort of diffuser in front and you get more light from multiple angles, which softens the highlight/shadow contrast and gives you a lovely look.
Meanwhile, my dog is (almost) completely black, which makes her difficult to photograph in almost any light… unless she has some sand and surf to give her fur more color/texture.
trollhattan
@Keith:
There are rumors a future iphone will have Lytros tech built in. Which would kinda ruin it for me but would sell tens of millions of them.
It’s interesting technology, fer sure. There’s a technique called “focus stacking” that does something similar using a standard camera and post processing, but the result is vast DOF in a macro image, rather than the point&select-focus-plane interface of the Lytro.
Good times to be a geek.
tempnym
@geg6: I’ve done some freelance work for one of the big for-profit higher ed companies.
I’m thrilled about Kay Hagan’s bill, too. I doubt it’ll pass, because of the lobbying, but the more the issue gets played up in public, the more people will opt not to burn up their federal loans and GI Bill benefits with a private for-profit school.
JeremyH
I’m not a big fan of thinking of the Rule of Thirds as a “rule”. It’s more of a guideline, but you don’t want to follow it too slavishly. Sometimes it simply doesn’t apply. And other times, it’s application is misunderstood. Either way, it can tempt one in the wrong direction.
In this case, I think you misunderstood the application of the rule of thirds.
You have placed the center of Max’s head on both the horizontal and vertical “thirds”. On first inspection, this would appear to make sense. His head is important, and has a certain visual volume.
But I would argue that by far the most important point in the frame is not Max’s head, but Max’s EYE. If anything, that’s what you want to put on a “third”. But the way you have composed it, his eye is horizontally dead center.
This needn’t always be a problem per se – but in this case, you have an eye that naturally prefers to travel left-to-right; you have a subject that is looking right-to-left; you have a dominant point in the frame that is dead centre; and you have an expanse of dead space on the left side of the frame. A few wisps of grass doesn’t provide a sufficient counterweight to Max’s fine, imposing form on the right.
The eye is uncertain where to go. It hovers in uncertainty. I think that’s why you are vaguely dissatisfied with the picture.
I think the best way to strengthen this picture would be to simply crop the left to create a square composition. That places Max’s eye very close to the upper left third, and still leaves room for him to gaze piercingly out of the frame.
It’s not perfect, but I think it’s more satisfying to the eye.
Thoughts?
Xenos
Lovely blues and greens. And Max is a gorgeous set of browns, too.
I am showing my age, but my first impression is ‘what a nice subject for fujichrome – kodachrome would be just too saturated for this’.
koalaholik
Any photo of Max is a “WOW” photo. Please more Max
Tim F.
@JeremyH: Yes, that was my first thought as well. I tried to make Max’s eye define the third while keeping the four-thirds aspect ratio but I had to crop too close to do that. I will definitely se whether a square format works better.
Yutsano
MAXPUPPEH!!
Other than that I got nothin’.
Larkspur
@yopd1: Does she run with him on leash? Actually, whether she does or not, dogs are so specific that I think you can teach your dog that when you walk him, on leash, it’s a whole different locomotive event. (That’s why it’s often hard to get a dog to obey “Sit!” if you haven’t practiced it with him in different locations, with you in different stances, with a variety of distractions.)
So a “Let’s run!” is a whole different gig from a “Let’s walk!”, and he can learn to perform both. A harness is helpful. I like the harnesses with the chest ring, because it basically makes him turn when the leash tightens, which breaks his momentum.
What seems to work is lots of practice where the second he pulls the leash taut, you stop, turn, and walk the other way. Repeat and repeat and repeat. I’ve heard trainers say that using a command like “Close!” to mean you want him close to your side with a loose leash is preferable to “Heel!”. I don’t know why except that I guess “Heel” has a very specific meaning.
Meanwhile, those among you who are partaking of spirits right about now, please lift a glass in memory of my dear little friend Rocky. He was a smart, dynamic, awesomely intelligent little toy poodle who passed last week at 15 1/2. He had a good life. I got to walk him and house-sit him and his gang (another poodle, a bulldog, and two Ragdoll cats). It was time; he had to get his wings and go. I’m gonna miss him.