Adventure Art will be attending the Fair City Dog Training Club Agility Show at Scone Palace on the 9th of May - Saturday only - to photograph the agility competition.

I won’t be able to cover more than one ring at a time, so if you are not in that ring and would like a shot of your dog competing, please let me know when and where you will be on.  Similarly if you have any special requests e.g. your dog in the weaves or contact equipment rather than jumping, please ask and I’ll see what I can do.

I’ll also be taking some portraits between and after classes, so if you would like a portrait shot of your dog (with or without rosettes!) please come and speak to me to arrange a suitable time.  Portraits at events are taken on the same basis as all other event photos - you have no obligation to buy, just purchase the shots you like from the website as normal.

If you would like to arrange a private portrait shoot on another day for your dogs (and you can combine with some friends if you wish), again please come over for a chat or drop me an email.

- Hello, is that the Mill Farm?

- Yes

- I don’t suppose you’ve lost a sheep dog have you? We found one at our back gate this morning.

- Oh, yes, the boys said they were missing one this morning

- A black and white Collie?

- Yes. Emm… do you have a bitch in heat?

- Yes, I think Skye might be.

- Ah, that’ll be Joe then. I’ll send someone to collect him.

This shot, taken inside The Apartment Bar in Belfast appeared in the January/February 2009 issue of Virtuoso Life, “the flagship magazine of Virtuoso member travel advisors”.  Apparently Virtuoso is the industry’s leading network of luxury travel agents.

It is not the most exciting shot, but it is probably an unusual angle on a pretty common subject.  And for this article, is perfect for demonstrating that Belfast bars are not all about Guinness and old men in corners with fiddles…

This photograph was taken on the same photo shoot as my favourite takeaway restaurant photo (which sold again yesterday).

Anyway he was a great subject for a puppy photo session.  Of course I did suffer the usual pet photographers problem of a lick on the lens, and then Murphy dancing on my head rather than posing for the camera.

I was shooting event photographs of the agility, and also got to see my own dog Nevis competing.  Nevis is an old hand at modelling (if not agility) - he always has his eye on the camera.

With the nice weather, there was loads of light and so for a change I wasn’t having to shoot at the limits for my camera.  This gave me the flexibility to get a really high shutter speed to freeze the dog’s movements (about 1/1000 of a second), yet keep a decent aperture (f5.6-8) to ensure a reasonable depth of field.

There is a bit of a trade-off with depth of field when photographing dog agility though - more is great because you will get more dogs in focus at the critical point of the jump. The downside is that all the extraneous background clutter (other jumps, spectators etc) also has more chance of being in focus and distracting from the subject.

The small dogs are amazing to watch - they seem to jump many multiples of their own height.

In between classes, I managed to fit in a few quick portrait sessions - this one with a proud dad and three of his pups..

As usual, I started with some simple test shots in the house - working out if either of them has a ‘better’ side, or any features they would like to emphasise or de-emphasise.  The ‘best side’ issue fascinates me - many people have no discernible ‘best side’ but for some people it is immediately striking that they do.  These can be people who go through their lives hating every photo taken of them, just because no-one has spent the time in a relaxed environment taking shots from every angle to find the way they look their best.  Sometimes ‘best’ is only discernible to them, sometimes it is obvious to everyone - but you have to give people a chance to find what they are happy with.

In this case the biggest issue we faced is that the groom is a good foot taller than his bride - not because she is short, but because he is very, very tall!  So we tried a variety of poses to reduce the height difference.  I find that this experimentation and dealing with specific issues helps get a couple more relaxed about having their photo taken in general, so that when the time comes to go outside and do some proper shots the smiles have relaxed and the apprehension about being the centre of attention has ebbed away. That’s why I think any decent wedding photographer really must offer some sort of pre-wedding session - you have to get to know the couple, learn what poses work for them, what they like to see in photos of themselves, and get them well used to having their photo taken long before the big day.

So when we did get out to Victoria Park we were just able to have a laugh together, and that’s when you get the best shots. Standing, sitting, walking, dancing in the daffodils… they did the lot.  Much to the amusement of everyone else in the park…

It was a really fascinating session - just seeing the way she works which is very subtle and gentle but seems to have a dramatic effect on the horse.  I was trying to stay in the background and photograph as unobtrusively as possible - we didn’t do any setup shots, they were all taken in the course of a normal horse physio treatment.

Back next week to do some shots of dog physiotherapy.

After the service in the wedding chapel at the end of the drive, we sneaked off down to the wee loch to get some more intimate photographs of the bride and groom while the guests were getting stuck into their first glass of  champagne.

The dancing went on till the wee small hours, but we squeezed in one more setup just after midnight.  The idea for this one came from the groom - he’d seen the great shapes these windows made when the room inside was lit and buzzing.  I just had to figure out how to light it to get the effect they wanted.  I’d love to claim that the ‘kiss’ shadow on the pillar to the left was intentional!

These shots were taken at an ice-climbing competition, the Gorzderette, in Champangy-le-haut, France.  Myself and Neil were taking part for most of the day, but there was still plenty of time for pictures.  The two the paper have chosen are not actually my favourites - I prefer this one:

When I was at Uni The Independent was my favourite paper, and it was my greatest ambition to get some photos in the paper - it was then at the pinnacle of classy photo-journalism. I think their standards have dropped some since then, but still - another ambition ticked!  Unfortunately now that I’ve had a lot of photos published over the years, my first thought was not

‘Wow, I’ve got a picture in The Independent‘

it was more

‘Wow, The Independent doesn’t pay much, does it?’

Walking the dogs along the railway line on the way back from the stables, I spotted some deer on the other side of the track. They were far enough away not to be bothered by my presence, and milled around for quite a while before casually taking off across the fields.