Whew- one challenge down, eleven to go!! I had so much fun exploring the area, trying things out, and stretching my portrait skills for this one. So many possibilities!! I know from many years of experience that color balancing is tricky with my tollers’ red fur, so my initial thought was to find a black & white model and head to our local tulip festival. I always like to scout a new location ahead of time, so I grabbed a friend and my own dog, and we headed to the flowers.
One and done, right? Not exactly! While beautiful, I just wasn’t getting the look I wanted- a bold, single color background. There was just far too much green, and the light was too harsh- the tulip field had nothing to diffuse the sunlight and it closed too early to wait for golden hour. Scrap plan A!
Plan B was to find a mural with a limited color palette that would still be a nice complement to the dog- a taller order than you might think! I did some online research and came up with a red one that would work for my black model, plus a dark teal that would set off my own dogs nicely. I had my weekend plan! And on further research, learned that the teal one was demolished in 2022. Oh well, I still have my model dog lined up!
These images are… fine. They meet the brief, they’re focused and composed well, they get the job done. I probably could have submitted one of them, gotten decent feedback, and moved on. But they didn’t feel like me! I didn’t love any of them, and I didn’t feel like they had any kind of story or emotion to them. And for these challenges- especially for the first one- I wanted more impact! On to plan C.
Plan C didn’t exist. It was concepts of a plan, as some might say. I woke up at the crack of dawn, threw Willow in the car, and just drove around town, stopping anywhere that caught my eye. The sun rises so early these days that I was out the door before 6am, and didn’t even make coffee before I left. We ended up all over- a playground, an abandoned building off the harbor, and a deserted Genesee Street. I’ve never seen it so empty!
Any of these could have been a decent contender! My leading choice for a week was the blue & yellow building, even though I didn't think it was quite bold enough. I was going to keep sleeping on it, then revisit and clean up my final choice before submitting. I was still holding out hope that inspiration would strike- that I would have a better idea or take another shot that would make me say, “now THIS is my photo.”
But then, as luck would have it, I took a detour on my way to agility one night and drove by a warehouse with this bold blue stripe around the bottom walls. It was just what I needed!! And since it ran around the entire building, I could be more flexible with timing- any hour in the morning or evening would mean shade on at least one side! As an added bonus, this was Jay’s color as a baby and I still had several toys in the perfect shade of aqua.
So Sunday morning, with 6 days until the deadline, I once again loaded the dogs up and headed out in search of something great. We took lots of photos and I ended up with several contenders, but one in particular stood out to me. His plaintive expression, clearly begging for someone to play with, really drew my attention. I knew that this was the one! I cleaned it up, evened out the lighting on his face, and did my best to clean up stray hair, spit, and dirt.
View a before/after of this image here!
All that was left was to submit and await my feedback. It was a long few days!! The judges loved the color match of the background to the frisbee, the color harmony of the dog, his expression, and the way his gaze balanced the negative space in the top left of the image. They did recommend darkening the frisbee a bit more so that it doesn’t draw attention away from the face, which I absolutely agree with! Overall, we placed into the Top 20 of the 80 images submitted- a great start to the course!!
The most interesting part of this process was definitely hearing the judges’ feedback on all the submissions, not just mine. There are so many tiny details that can set apart a great photo from an amazing one, and so many things that I just don’t think about! I’m excited to take what I learned from this round and apply it to the next 11 challenges. On to the next!