Photographing within the Buttercups of May

What Beautiful weather we have had this week, great fro going out and photographing the spring flowers. Or for me it meant taking my two Welsh Springers for a long walk at Trelissick Gardens, Cornwall. However, the dogs are not allowed in the formal gardens, they get to walk throughout the woodlands. As a typical photographer I could not go out within out my camera and took this opportunity to get photographs of my dogs within the buttercups which cover the field at this time of year.

For this shoot I tried to have the dogs in many different positions, but I ended up having the boys running towards me, as I wanted them to enjoy themselves and not find their walk boring as that was the main reason they were there. For me to be able to get the dogs to run towards me, I got one of my parents to go about 20 meters away from me and the other to stand behind me. This meant that they could each cal the dogs to them and I could then photograph the dogs running between them.

I found it easier to photograph Jago more than Talan, as Jago is the younger dog and does not get distracted by smells. So after moving around a few times I final found a place where there was a slight slope which meant that I could get a lower position. After taking quite a few different photographs, I ended up with one of my favourite photographs I have ever taken of my dog, which can be seen bellow.

This photograph has a strong composition as it uses the rule of thirds, having a foreground, mid-ground and background, and has the dog off to one side, but leaving some space between the dog and the edge of the photograph. This photograph also gets you 'asking where is the dog going?' due to the negative space left to the right hand side of the photograph and with the way his eyes are looking off to the right.

So don't be afraid to take you camera with you wherever you go, whether it is just a trip into town, or on a long walk, you never know what you are going to see. When I went out on this walk, I was not originally going to take my camera, but just before I left I changed my mind and I'm glad I did as I would never had got this fantastic photograph.