Photogenic

It's easy to practice photography when you have such good-looking subjects. :)

Fun with Photoshop

Okay, I don't want to fall into the bucket of amateur-photographer-discovers-photoshop-plug-ins but I will admit it is a lot of fun. Sure it's easy to go overboard (overprocessed images on Facebook bug me too) but I think they might make for neat prints framed on a wall.

I will probably stick to the more traditional method of touching up through Photoshop for my regular photos but why not let loose once in a while and go click-crazy? :)

I used 3 different presets for this shot of Cora. I wanted to get an extremely burnt, but not overexposed, contrast since the original image was so boringly brown. Brown dog on brown carpet against a brown background. I also played with a pixelating tool which made for a cool shadow around her head.

I had a nice, clear outdoor shot of Max that was, well, almost too clear. This was a good way to practice with "airbrushing" tools to eliminate blemishes, minimize pores and do just about everything my collection of Bliss products promises to do.

My last picture was a "happy accident" that Aai took with the camera as she was trying it out for the first time. Again we had a white dog against a white shirt in front of white cabinets so I wanted to play with color and contrast to add dimensionality. Adding the frame was a fun way to add balance to the edges.

Venza Dog Days

We all went to a Toyota Venza dog event in Pasadena today. I've been working on the Venza launch campaign for months now... I think we started when Elaine was still here last year. Anyways, I was looking forward to checking out both the dog event and the Venza since I'd never been in one.

They had a small set-up in the parking lot but it had a lot of things going on: free donuts and coffee, dog treats, training packets, Toyota dog gear as well as two dog-equipped Venza's for owners and doggies alike to jump in and explore. They took doggie shots and also had a station set up to make your own screensaver of your dog licking cheese or peanut butter on plexiglass. We had a hard time getting Lulu interested in licking.

After checking out the Venza-related stuff, we headed into the park to let the dogs run around. Lulu was more excited than usual to run around in this park. (Must have been the cleaner Pasadena air)

Some action shots of Lulu...









Finally taking a rest...