Portrait

Taken 11/30/11

Nikon D7000

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

f/1.4

1/125

Focal Length: 30mm

ISO 400

Tripod Used

For my portrait project, I decided to do one of a dog. I chose to do my cousins dog because they’re the only people that I know that actually had a dog, and it was a puppy and still in its cute phase. I chose to do a dog because I thought it would be a little fun, challenging and also somewhat different from the portrait shots of people. I wanted to add a little more diversity and a little something different than just one portrait picture of a person wouldn’t provide. I was originally gonna do all my roommates (which is 7 of us total) to show difference in style and other personal things. But a lot of them didn’t really like the idea of having their pictures taken and weren’t really willing. So I had to decide to choose someone or something else. 

I couldn’t really do the portraits outside, because it is cold and it was kind of dark at the time that I took this photos. So I had to do them inside their apartment. I didn’t have anything to use for a background and so I just decided to go with the white wall background that they had and have the dog sit on a chair to give it something to sit on and made it a little higher up. 

Being inside, the light was limited and so I had to use lamps and a flash to get some good lighting on the face. I chose a different lens than what I normally use because it had an aperture that could go lower and help to soften and blur the background. The dog was a little harder to do due to the fact that it’s a dog. He’s also a puppy. So he likes to move around a lot and it was hard trying to get him to hold still. But he actually sat on the chair when there was a treat put in front of his face. So my cousin just sat there with a treat, out of the cameras line of view and kind of made the dog beg. It made for some pretty interesting shots.