Sleeping Dog, a photo from New South Wales, East

Photographer's Note

24 FEBRUARY 2005, BIRCHGROVE, SYDNEY

This one is for dog fanatics (or people obsessed with cute things)...

Two schnauzers keep their wary distance from a third, much larger dog whilst out for their evening walk at a park in Birchgrove, a small suburb on one of the many coves along the Paramatta River in western Sydney.

***A Lesson to Learn!
*Always* keep a lens hood on the front of your lenses if you have them; especially wide angle lenses. Far more important than those so called 'protection filters'.

If you get this close to a large, playful dog as I have here you run the risk of erratic animal behaviour causing damage to your camera equipment. I did not predict that the dog, moments after this, would turn to the left and slam its body into me. The plastic lens hood absorbed most of the impact (but didn't spare my head from the shock). The filter did little more than to collect a healthy sample of the dog's snot.

So lenshoods, use them if you've got them. Besides, those flower-shaped ones look cool...

----
24mm ; XP2 rated EI200

RandomCameraGuy, Praetzer, rtome, eleparc has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

RandomCameraGuy (3069) 2005-04-13 5:13

Hahahahaha! Funny note man. Good advice too: Lens hoods are cool ;)

Excellent perspective on this shot. Love how the people are secondary here (or even an afterthought). Nicely captured moment with the two looking at the one. Great sharpness too. Well done.

clodreno (0) 2005-04-13 5:24

ouaf.ouaf..Sorry I don't know how to bark in English.
I like that one.. very nice angle.. it reminds me of shots in the book of Elliot erwitt shot at dog's level..
I like the tilt and the legs of the "Human" elements in this one.
very nice.. those two guys are puzzled by the big one..

khmelins (960) 2005-04-13 5:44

:) I know some one who will enjoy this picture.
The tilted compo is quite funny also, with the little dogs higher than the large one.
What about cropping out the heads of the people on the right and leave it in a complete doggy style :)?
anton

tongapup (0) 2005-04-13 10:05

Claude: what do you mean "ouaf"!? it's obviously "woof"! ;) (the strangest dog bark, in my opinion, is in russian: the dogs say "gav gav"!)

great pic, mike. i love the angle -- you were lying right down there, weren't you? the headless people just say "Welcome to Dog World"! the moment of drama is great and funny... the schnauzers remind me of some kind of small but powerful toughies sent to intimidate the larger dog, who got in over his head on a con or a drug deal perhaps... hilarious. defintely a tribute to erwitt.

Darren (6823) 2005-04-13 11:36

Glad your camera survived. The tones here are great, you get good results with the XP2. Maybe I should try some of that; being C41, it is easy and cheap to process. A really fun, low level wide angle shot here. Two things I really like. First, I like the angle of the dog on the right, he is pointing in pretty much the perfect direction I think. Secondly, I like the single leg at the top left, for some reason that adds a lot for me. Sky seems a little non descript, but not blown out and doesn't hurt anything. Nice shot Mike

AnimeshRay (9073) 2005-04-13 14:43

Very funny! Nice angle and the legs are good where they are. Good tones

Praetzer (1662) 2005-04-13 16:34

funny. excellent POV. Like very much the tilt.

Homerhomer (4069) 2005-04-13 20:39

I could have taken hundreds of shots like this but never did, simply because I never saw photo opportunity, you did and you made a very good image out of it.
I like everything about it, composition wise I was questioning the head in the top right corner, but just by scrolling my screen up and down I see that it probably wouldn't work that with tighter crop. Tilt is fine, darker foreground helps us concentrate on the dogs, dof is just right. Leg on the left is superb.
And we can see that the ladies look at their dogs with those baby love eyes. Very good image with social aspects of our lives.
Peter

gringofil (0) 2005-04-17 11:25

I really like the low angle of this one, Mike. The tilt also works and the tones from the Ilford look amazing as well. I just wish you moved the camera up a bit so we can see a bit more of the faces...apart from that an excellent and fun shot.

sohrab (7439) 2005-04-30 9:19

haha in human terms ok this could be compared to
joe pesci and danny devito picking on say..... michael clarke duncan?? :)

you've vignetted the photograph at the bottom haven't you?
how do you do it?
take care :)

maciekda (19861) 2005-05-04 8:40

this one is nice Mike, bold compo and good use of tilt. i like this low POV as well, i can feel that you were wery close to them and that's the world dogs see ;) nice one

joseelias (0) 2005-07-19 16:13

Good advice! Although with the size of my camera, if it had a lenshood it would not do much, as the dog would probably swallow the whole camera, and not only drop a little snot on it… ;-)

Good scene of the dog’s daily life, and their companions, the humans. I also find interesting that you’re making us feel like a dog ready to play giving us its perspective… Hope that’s your objective and not a subtle insinuation…

Very good use of the BW with a nice tilt to bring dynamic to the scene.

jcandeli (40) 2005-07-27 11:28

Wow. your gallery is great! Lots of nice wide angle photos. This one (just like your others) has great contrast and lighting. I love the low POV and vignetting. Great photo.

lestans (16820) 2005-09-23 10:00

Very good!! A pic from a dog's POV indeed! Did you sit down on the ground?
You pic is a little like Elliott Erwitt's, very funny. And very difficult to capture! Dogs are very speedy to come close to the photographer!
Livia

tico_tic (395) 2006-11-10 3:02 [Comment]