Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

Well I had a huge shopping spree yesterday, after much research I have officially jumped ship and switched from Nikon to Canon equipment, with a budget blowing purchase of an EOS 50D, 50mm ‘nifty’ and the ‘beast’, a Canon  70-200mm F2.8L USM lens:)  And after vowing not to step into a camera shop for the next year, less than 24 hours later I was back in today to purchase a monopod because this set up is *very* heavy, probably impossible to handhold for a couple of hours let alone a full day shooting like last weekend as Official Photographer for the WA Palamino Associations Annual Championship Show.

I havn’t yet read the manual and I have only had a short time to play with it, but the photos are pretty impressive.  Not that a 15 megapixel of the 50D camera impresses me much, but it allows for large cropping without loosing image quality.  On the other hand, with such big file sizes, I hope four 4GB CF cards will be enough for a days shooting.

My New Toys:)

And some first shots:

Border Collie Trinity

Border Collie Taj

Belgian Shepherd Max

Miniature pony colt

Miniature pony stallion

Oh, and the reason I swapped from Nikon to Canon…basically the cost of getting an equivelant Nikon set up for what I want it to do (D300 or D700) was astronomical compared to the Canon, plus long term, Canon lenses are more affordable (if L glass can be considered affordable) and accessible than Nikon lenses – other than that, it wasn’t a quality issue, Nikons are great cameras, and I will keep mine as backup rather than sell it.

If anyone is considering a similar purchase, I say go for it!  LOL you only live once;)

Look out for more photos from the beast on my photography proofs site http://www.southwestphotography.com.au

A selection of images from the Canine Association of WA’s Championship Dog Show

Rhodesian Ridgeback dog show photography Perth © 2009 South West Photography

Bearded Collie © 2009 South West Photography

Border Collie Show Dog © 2009 South West Photography

Boxer Dog © 2009 South West Photography

Boxer in the Show Ring © 2009 South West Photography

Rough Collie © 2009 South West Photography

Images available for purchase from dog shows are available to view on the events section of my South West Photography website.

Taking nice photographs of pets and other animals is the easy part when you know how - part of it involves taking hundreds at a time:).  That’s the best thing about digital cameras, taking hundred’s of photos every day isn’t expensive like it was in the days of film.

But learning to take good photographs is only the start , you really need to learn how to use a good graphics program like Photoshop, or at least that’s what I tell myself after I’ve spent *another* three hours playing with a photo;)  Seriously though, there are so many cool effects that you can do with graphics programs that it is so worth the time and effort that it takes to learn how to use them.

Generally speaking, it is always better to get everything with the lighting, pose and background as perfect as possible before you take the photo.  But sometimes with animals that is just not possible – especially when photographing cats.  If you have a cat, well then you know that cats just do what they want when they want and you really just have to work with them rather than against them.  Ha ha – otherwise you end up with a cat-astrophe!

The first photo below is an original photo of one of our cat’s, Tara and is a good example of the background not being perfect.  Tara is not a particularly affectionate cat and she really does not like having her photo taken so good photos of her are few and far between (actually, that is an understatement, judging by her reaction when she sees it, I am sure she thinks that the camera is some sort of cat-torture-device!).

However, I managed to snap this photo of her as she was running away from my camera/cat-torture-device only because she stopped to give me this look of disgust:)

Unfortunately, in the photo it looks like she has a stick growing out of her ear and under her chin.

Thank goodness for Photshop because I was able to remove the stick that was growing out her ear, as well as the bit under her chin.  I also burned the background edges to focus more on Tara’s face and I lightened her eyes just a tad.  Viola!  Now I finally have a photo of Tara worth having enlarged and framed!

In a similar fashion, using the clone stamp, healing brush and blur tools of various diameter I was also able to remove the collar and tags from this photo of Jess, and then burn in a black background so that the focus is now directly on Jess.  Oh yeah, and I removed the gooby drool hanging from her bottom lip (the Schmacko’s made her do it!)

Taking a photo from this…

To this….

Although I really need to put a white border around it so that the edge of the photo shows up against the black of this page.

I’ve always believed that Photography is in itself an artform, and just like photography, using a graphics program to enhance or improve photos is just like learning to use another art medium (like pastels or oil paint).  At some stage in the future I’d really like to explore abstract nature photography combined with digital manipulations because I think that the possibilities for creating unique art would be endless, and a lot of fun.  Course I will have to work out how to fit another three or four days into the week just to find the time:)

Happy New Year everyone! Wow, where has the last month gone? The rush of Christmas has come and gone and here we are already at the end of the first week of 2007.

While I havn’t managed to update this blog in the last month, I have finally had the time to add some new work to the Dog gallery and also the Photography Gallery. I quite often get asked about my techniques by other artists, and I actually managed to take some progress photos of two of the Christmas portraits that I did (the Rottweiler and the Chihuahua) and will put them togther as a work in progress type thread.

During my short break over Christmas and New year (I certainly needed it after the last minute commissions I had to finish), I had the opportunity to do several dog and cat photography sessions in the Perth area and have added a few to the photography gallery and have included a few of my favourites below.

Close-up images of animal faces, especially the eyes is a re-curring theme in both my artwork and photography.  I truly believe the eyes are the windows to the soul, and by focusing (no pun intended!) on the eyes, I think it allows the spirit and soul of the animal to shine through.

Buffy having a rest

Meesha – grey, cream and white Domestic Shorthair

Jess – Australian cattle Dog (Blue Heeler)

Tia – Up close and personal with my own dog

The one below is obviously not an animal, but I also enjoy nautre and landscape photography.  I took this one late in the evening at Roley Pools, the timing was great in as far as the golden evening light was concerned and I am quite happy with photos from that shoot.

Additional photos from these sessions can be viewed in my Photograph Gallery.