Jumping Dog [Explored]

As a dog owner and photographer, I'm never without a willing (for a reward) subject to take pictures of.  George my 2 year old Sprocker Spaniel has given great service right from when he was a pup (one of his puppy pics has been sold by Getty many times).  He's done Studio work, Outdoor work, been composited, off camera flashed and loads more besides.

His latest modelling session involved an idea I had to get him to jump straight up at the camera for a quirky shot.  It worked out quite well and I posted a couple of images onto Flickr.  For me these were work in progress, it was the first time I tried it, and as it was a dull day, high ISO was needed resulting in more noise than I wanted.

However, the citizens of Flickr did not agree and both images got "Explored" and one of the images picked up over a thousand hits in just one day, which is very good for me.

You can see that image here.

I thought I would put together a short video of how it was done, there's a couple of tricks I discovered along the way. Hope you enjoy it, George certainly did.

I would love to see other peoples attempts.

Should you tell?

I had the idea for a picture of my dog George sitting in autumn leaves, and as he's from a shooting background, a dead Pheasant on the Ground in front of him.  Lots of autumnal browns and yellows, and a brown dog as well as the plumage of the Pheasant.

But the chances of getting George to sit still on his own, let alone with a Pheasant just in front of him was pretty remote, so I had to resort to other tactics.

I ended up shooting a background of leaves at a local park, and using OnOne softwares excellent Focal Point 2 (onone software) to provide a realistic focus blur to it.

That evening I set up a couple of Studio Flash stands with softboxes, a table full of collected leaves, and the dog sat in the middle.  The following night I did the same with a Pheasant my wife had obtained from a local farmer.

Then it was a task to cut out the dog and Pheasant in Photoshop, assemble the lot and colour balance the various parts (see below).

Now I quite like the final image, BUT it has polarised opinion once I've revealed how it was made, with one individual claiming "oh thats fantastic" before I told them, and "I don't like it now" once I'd let on.

Its as though the magic was gone for him because I had invented a reality rather than captured it, and somehow this was wrong.

Which poses the question, if you've created an image like this should you tell people its not real?

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