DDR German Shepherds

altostland · Site Admin Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 788 Location: Texas

I hope you all understand that these posts will all apply to all of you, no matter how old, unsophisticated or antiquated your camera may be. Whether you have an old Kodak 110, 35 or the newest Canon digital, the basics we'll be covering will apply for all cameras and all levels or lack of expertise with your camera.
That being said, I'd like to talk about setting up the pic.
A few rules of thumb for stacked photos:
1) Don't shoot your picture looking DOWN at the dog.
2) Don't shoot with the rear feet higher than the front or vice-versa
3) Don't shoot with the dog looking away from the camera.
4) Don't shoot with them crouching or ears down.

OK, so you've picked a place to take your picture, level ground, with a background against which the dog will remain visible. Get far enough away from the dog that you leave a decent bit of a border between the dog and the edge of the viewfinder, but not so far that the dog is just a dot in the center. (This border will be invaluable later for cloning purposes!) If you must kneel down to get your picture without shooting down at the dog, then do so. I try to have my camera about even with the dog's withers or topline, or just a hair lower, but not higher. Taking pictures looking down at the dog not only messes with color and shadows, but it also usually distorts the actual conformation. I know most of you have looked at the professional stack photos URMA does in Germany that are on the Pedigree Database. You can get a whole unwritten lesson there as to the angle of the camera to the dog, and the lighting/shadows.
If you are stacking the dog on level ground, which is the ONLY way you'll be able to see true conformation and angulation, the fron feet and the hind feet should be on the same level across the bottom of your viewfinder, if you are standing fully perpendicular to the dog, and not at some oblique angle. Any other angle will make the dog look higher in one end than the other, and not an accurate depiction.
Many of you know how frustrating it can be to take pics of your dogs. Either they don't stand still, or they flatten out and won't show you some alert expression.
I have taken many pics by myself, and can tell you it takes a BUNCH of photos like this to get one you like. If, however, you have the luxury of HELP taking pics, it's best done with three people minimum.
1 person of course must stack and hold the dog, 1 must take the photos, and the third is there to bait the dog, and get the ears up. I have used just about everything at my disposal, from keys to rocks, to balls, to puppies, to weird noises! One one occasion, one of my helpers picked up a traffic cone and put it on his head then began weaving slowly from one side to the other, causing the otherwise bored dog to look at him like "What the H--- are YOU???"
Another of my favorite moves is to have your bait person work slowly in an arc so that they start out directly in line with the dog, showing you a full profile. As the person moves in an arc slowly around and behind the photographer, you get many opportunities for some beautiful shots. And even if the dog should move in the process, don't automatically discount the photos that didn't work out for stack shots... you may have some gorgeous head shots there that can be cropped down.
Of course it goes without saying that this works a lot easier if the dog has been taught to "stand" on command. But if the dog breaks your stack, you can always walk them around a minute and set up your stack again, and try a few more shots. And remember, as long as your hands aren't all over the dog holding them in a stack, you can always be cloned out of the pic.
One last thing.....
COLLARS - the best thing for taking these pics is to have a very very fine chain collar (it messes up the hair far less than a wider flat collar (especially a great big red nylon one, hehehe!) Laughing

_________________
Judy Malone
www.altostland.com
HOME of CHAMPIONS!
3 UKC GRAND CH, 6 UKC CH, 17 INT CH
"Don't make me get my flyin' monkeys!"

altostland · Site Admin Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 788 Location: Texas

ONE MORE THING!
It's best to take your stack photos with the dog's head facing left. This is the way dogs are presented to a judge, and the way it's best and easiest to take your pics. If there is no writing in the picture, almost any photo editing program will be able to flip the photo horizontally, so the face is to the left. But it's a good practice to try to set them up right to start with, unless you just have to reverse it in order to work with a difficult background.
_________________
Judy Malone
www.altostland.com
HOME of CHAMPIONS!
3 UKC GRAND CH, 6 UKC CH, 17 INT CH
"Don't make me get my flyin' monkeys!"