My Morning with Clyde

 Clyde is a Weimaraner that someone dropped off at our house. I can only imagine what trials and tribulations that they must have been going through to want to drop of such a wonderful dog. He has been with our family for five years now and has brought us great joy and happiness.  This morning I took him out in the field, but instead of a Remington 870, I brought a Nikon D300S. Weimaraners are natural hunters. As far as I know Clyde has never been trained to hunt, but as you see, he just has the instinct. He will retrieve until he loses interest, and he will point. Sometimes his instinct gets him in a little trouble. On more than one occasion, he has been a victim of our cats razor sharp claws. As soon as we stepped into the field, Clyde locked on to something. Normally, I can't get more than a few feet away from him, but this morning, something else had his attention. He slowly moved toward a downed oak tree in our pasture. His concentration at the overload setting. Machine like best describes his actions. He was doing something and I am sure he didn't know why. It was just in his blood. After a few seconds it happened, the point. Clyde was on point. After taking a couple of quick images, a kicked the brush and a rabbit scurried away.

Clyde is all business when we step into the field.

He zeros in on his prey!

He is locked on now.

The point, I love it when he does this. 

"Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun"

Man I love "Blinded by the Light"! You younger folks won't know what I am talking about. I also love shooting outside. Throw in a beautiful model in a swimsuit, and you have the recipe for success! In all seriousness, when I am shooting someone outside, I never want to have them facing into the sun. NEVER EVER! Now pay attention, here comes the tricky part. I try to position them so the sun is behind or to the side of them. The sun then puts a rim light on their skin, and highlights in their hair. The problem is, the sun also makes your model become a silhouette. To counteract this effect, you need to use an off camera flash on the opposite side of your model from the sun. Set your camera to expose for the background that you have, and adjust the power on your flash to properly expose your model. (did you catch that play on words?) See the nice highlights in her hair and the rim light down her left side. Now that's what I am talking about!

This is Stephanie Ziajka. Remember the name. She competes in pageants and she is currently Miss Tampa Bay, and will be competing for the title of Miss Florida in July! We recently spent a chilly day on the beach shooting for Swimsuit Illustrated Magazine and Blue Sky Swimwear. I had a great time photographing her, she is such a nice young lady. I look forward to working with her again.