On Black

Having recently done a photo shoot in Hi Key, I purchased some black velvet to do some Low Key shots. I had a friend who wanted some low key shots of her Tri Colored Aussie, so she came over for a Portrait session. I absolutely love this background. There is absolutely no reflection of light, it just gets absorbed.

Now the drawback: it picks up every hair, dust and dirt in the einviroment. In dry air, static electricity just attracted more hair. We spent more time using a lint brush attempting to get the worse of the white hair off the backdrop than posing the animals. Thankfully, Photoshop CS5 and Content Aware came to the rescue for all the hair that the lint brush missed.





After we were done shooting her Aussie, we added my Eskimo puppy for a nice Black and White photo:





Then we added a couple of cats:








We had a lot of fun shooting with this lovely black background. I am looking forward to doing more Portrait sessions using this background.

Ace Agility NADAC Trial - Candids are up

The Candid photos from the Ace Agility NADAC trial are up on my website,
http://pennyjwillsphotography.smugmug.com/Agility/ACE-Agility-NADAC-Trial-Nov-13/Candids/14699715_YnVYc#1096144749_tWDPE

Due to the low light conditions, the photos will not be as tack sharp as if they had been taken in the bright sunlight. There are still options to processing your photos. These options include: Processing the image as an Oil Painting, adding a Glamour Glow, adding texture to the photo, and simulating a Canvas print. Each of these options may be added to any of the trial photos, or none of these options, the decision is yours. If there is a photo that you really like, but the photo is not the sharpest, you may want to consider one of the above options. Please drop me an email with the photo ID# and I will process a quick proof and email back to you for your approval. None of the photos posted have been processed beyond simple noise reduction and resizing. Any photo ordered will be color corrected and processed as best as the lighting conditions allow.

Samples of Artistic Processing:

Glamour Glow


Canvas Texture:


Oil Painting:


Soft Vignette:


If you have any questions on these options, please email me at Penny @ pennyjwillsphotography.com

ACE Agility NADAC Trial

My first NADAC trial was this past Sunday, November 14th. in South Hadley, Ma. I signed up for this trial because it was close to home, the runs were reasonable, it was indoors ( a major consideration in November in New England), and a friend had urged me to go. "I'll be fun", "You'll have a great time" she says. So I signed up, brought my experienced girl for 5 runs, and my little girl for her first trial, I limited to just 2 runs in classes that I thought that she would have fun in: Weavers and Tunnelers.





The "You'll have fun" statement my friend had said was way off! I had a blast! It was a very nice little trial, the people were great, and I saw a good many of my friends from other agility venues there. This trial was more about socializing and having a good time than worrying about Q-ing.



I set up a little distance from the ring, my camera and I, and set to shoot the runs. Well, indoors in November is great, until the reality of shooting in dim lighting in a horse arena hits. I bumped the ISO on my camera up to a whopping 10,000 to get decent shots, but at that high an ISO, the quality of the photos goes down hill pretty fast. By mid day, the sun had cleared the trees and the lighting and temperature had gone up.

While I was running the Novice classes with my girls, my friend Jennifer Marks hijacked my camera and set about shooting the Novice class for me, then she wandered off to shoot some pretty darn nice candids of owners and their dogs. Except for a few photos that I shot, all the candids that will be posted are Jen's work. Very nice work too! At the end of the day, I was wondering, how am I going to get my camera back? I need not have worried, she came running over, the memory card was full.



All in all, it was a wonderful day, and I had a great time watching and shooting the runs.
ACE Agility NADAC Agility Trial November 14th, Jumpers proofs are up, the others will be coming soon. I managed to come down with a miserable cold between Sunday and Monday. I apologize that I am a little behind in getting the photos up.

http://www.pennyjwillsphotography.com/Agility/ACE-Agility-NADAC-Trial-Nov-13/Jumpers/14696431_XGEBn