Sunday Stills - Pets And Ed's Five Year Anniversary

Happy Anniversary, Ed! 

Sunday Stills is a great photography group.  I'd have to look back to see when I started participating, but it's been awhile for sure.  I remember seeing Sunday Stills posts on some of my favorite blogs and I'd think, wow, I'd sure like to join in, but thought you probably had to be some fancy photographer and get invited or something.  No so!

Everyone is not only welcomed, but encouraged to join - just go to the Sunday Stills site and post your entry in the comments.  There are photographers of all sorts and focus and the challenges Ed posts each week range from easy to difficult, but are always do-able, and as with most things, the more you try to get out of it, the more you do.  I've learned a lot.  Thanks, Ed!

The challenge for this week is pets.  So...an easy one.  Or is it?  I'd already set my own personal challenge for the upcoming year to get better pictures of Iris, Weaslie and Claire Bear.  I've put together several calendars now and if you've noticed, there are never any big pictures of any of them.  Why?  Because they are black and black is a tough color to photograph.  Some pictures of black pets for Ed's anniversary would be a fun learning experience.

This is usually what I end up with.  Cute, sure, but the black shows no texture, shape or definition.  Claire Bear is a black blob with two yellow dots for eyes.  This was taken with my favorite go to lens, the 18-200mm.  It's a great everyday, all purpose lens and there are shots I quickly capture with it that I'd never be able to get with a fixed length lens.  The trade off is a little loss in clarity sometimes.

The rest of these pictures were taken with my macro lens, probably my second favorite lens.  Second only because it's a fixed 100mm and there are times when you just can't walk backwards far enough.  It's a great lens for close up detail, but I think it also makes a really nice portrait lens.  Ed helped Saint Tim pick it out for me for my birthday a couple years ago :-D.

You still have to think about what you are doing and I have no idea what I was thinking with my aperture setting here.  Well, I know what I was thinking...nothing.  Sigh.  There's so much more to a good photograph than a "fancy" lens.  If I'd opened up my aperture and blurred out the distracting tree in the background, this would be a much better portrait.  At least you can now see Iris has hair ;-).

"And I have a snow flake on my nose."

"See?  Right there on the tip."

"I have snowflakes on my whole body!"

White can be just as hard to capture as black.  However, as you can see by the snow, the camera and lens had no problem picking up the detail and color.  Weaslie's "white" tummy?  Headed straight for the bath tub! 

For more Sunday Stills...