John & Lisa photographing the lake behind their home in Oldsmar during our DSLR Photography LessonJohn has been very prolific in adding to his already substantial photography gear list since our last DSLR Photography Lesson at John's Pass village just two weeks ago. For our second lesson, but first for his wife Lisa joining us, I ventured out to their home in Oldsmar by special request. I knew they lived on a lake, but I did not know they had five dogs! This was a pleasant surprise.
John already had a Nikon D300s and the awesome Nikkor AF-S 105mm VR micro f/2.8G lens, to that he added another D300s for Lisa and the Nikkor AF-S 17-55mm f/2.8G wide angle lens! On top of that he has boosted his software for editing digital photographs as well with the both Lightroom for his PC and Aperture 3 for Lisa's Mac!
One of their four Yorkshire Terriers and one of their five dogs total! They were very friendly.We started out wide shooting landscapes by the lake where I showed them how you can spice up an oft photographed scene by getting really low to the ground. John was not afraid to get dirty at all and lied down right on his stomach (recommended). To Lisa I suggested tilting the horizontal axis to add a dimension of interest.
After a quick retreat from the sun we were back outside to photograph a different subject matter entirely, dogs! After setting up their D300s's with the best manual settings for the harsh afternoon sunlight I led the dogs on several romps around their backyard as John and Lisa shot away from as close to eye level as they could get to their small dogs. It did not take long for them to realize that the percentage of in focus shots when photographing running dogs is not high at all. It is definitely a type of photography that takes practice, the right gear, and then more practice!
We ended up back inside starting to edit some of the photos they took in Lightroom and Aperture. I showed Lisa the PDF of shortcuts I made specifically for Aperture 3 that will help her get efficient when using the app.
It was a very different type of lesson for me on a number of accounts and also a lot of fun. Thanks to John and Lisa for their generous support of my lessons.