While my day job is corporate photography, I also enjoy shooting personal work. As a dog-owner, I decided to photograph our Miniature Schnauzer before he was clipped. Say hello to Mungo!
We’re lucky enough to live close to some beautiful parks and nature reserves, and I’ve been wanting to shoot some portraits at a local country park for some time now. On a sunny day, the light is fantastic before sunset, so we decided to take the portraits then. You certainly need a lot of patience when photographing dogs – Mungo is a bit of a rascal, and wasn’t keen on staying in one spot for very long, but the bag of dog treats we brought along did the trick.
For the first set of portraits I used a Lastolite Octabox and my Canon Speedlites to light Mungo. I wanted to show off the environment, and used the setting sun as a second light. This created a nice rim light which separated Mungo from the background.
I then changed lens and used the ambient light only for a different look. I chose my Canon 135mm f2 lens, which is a favourite of mine, and creates beautiful bokeh.
It was a challenging but rewarding shoot, and I’ll certainly be photographing Mungo again. Now he’s been clipped, we have part two of the shoot planned for later this month.