Photographing Dogs at Crufts
On Friday 11th March 2016 I attended Crufts for two reasons; to show my two Welsh Springer Spaniels and to photograph many of the Welshies in the ring for their owners. Crufts is known as the biggest dog show in the world and this year had over 22,000 dogs entered, from the UK and Abroad. The Welsh Springers had over 100 dogs entered, with the Dog Challenge Certificate going to USCH/SEU(U)CH/DKCHU/NOCH WELFORD'S JESMOND WATERFALL NOV-14 NORDV-14 NORDJV-12 NOJV-12 HEJ and the Bitch Challenge Certificate going to BUSHWACKER HOT GOSSIP, and Best of Breed going to the Dog CC.
After showing my dogs in the Veteran class and Puppy class, I grabbed my camera and headed back to the ring to start taking photographs. Due to the amount of people surrounding the ring I was forced to sit in on of the corners to take my photographs, this however was not a bad thing as I was on the perfect angle to capture the dogs standing at the table and moving round the ring.
Another problem that I faced when taking photographs, was the lighting. At the NEC the lighting is not fantastic when trying to take a photograph and to compensate I had to have my ISO higher than what I would of liked. When taking photographs I aim to have my ISO set at either 100 or 200, but on this day I had it set at 800.
I took about 1,000 photographs on the day, and then spent the last few days filtering through them to find the best photographs. I found quite a few photographs which captured my eye, but my favourite two can be seen here and show the Best of Breed winner standing and moving.
The photograph above shows the conformation of the dog. I find that this photograph draws your eye, as the dog stands out from the busy background. Due to the busy background I had to edit this photograph more than normal in Photoshop. When this was open in Photoshop I carefully selected the background and dropped the saturation of the colours, which dulled the background down and then lightened up the dog, so that he would stand out.
The Photograph on the right shows the dog on the move. Once again this photograph has been edited in Photoshop to reduce the saturation within the background. I find that this photograph works well as I was able to keep the face of the dog within focus. I also dropped the shutter speed down to 1/125 second on the camera so that when the photograph was produced I would see the motion of the dogs legs moving.
So when photographing dogs at Crufts or any other dog show make sure you are equipped with the right lens, preferably a zoom lens, as you might not be able to get too close to the ring like me. Also make sure you give yourself time before taking your photographs to set your camera up, with the correct ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed. Also try and pick a show with a simpler background that will help the dog to stand out, if this is not possible then be prepared to spend time editing your photographs in Photoshop.
