Thursday, July 19, 2012

Fields of Wheat

Haying season is here. Drive a few minutes out of town in any direction and you are guaranteed to see some tractors and combines working on the fields.

Koira Wheat Sepia

I've been wanting to do some pictures of the dogs in the wheat fields, and was reminded that I probably need to get on that if I want it to happen this year. Most of the fields are already down and drying in rows, waiting to be baled.

Canon 3094

I did finally find a good field of standing wheat (we have a lot more grass seed, so wheat fields are hard to find anyway). Without permission to be on the property, I made sure I was very careful not to crush any of the crop. I stopped in a pullout off the highway and either positioned the dogs in front of the edge of the field or in an existing area with no stalks that was just inside the edge.

Canon 3084

Pallo is, on the whole, rather too short to really get great wheat field pictures. I wished I had thought to bring along the blue chair to bring him up a bit and add an extra splash of color.

Canon 3081

It was really hot, and the dogs had to trade off waiting in the car (windows down and with me less than five feet away from the car, they weren't in any danger with their water bowl available and me right there, but they were rather warm). Koira's tongue is pretty reliable for telling the temperature.

Canon 3058

Pallo doesn't heat up like Koira does, so he didn't have quite the tongue to show off.

Canon 3047

I love the soft look of the picture below. I don't really know what I did to get it, though, so am not sure how to reproduce it again.

Canon 3038

Koira was wondering how long she would have to sit in this darn field. There was a rather pungent road killed skunk not far off, and had there been a less awesome field, we would not have stayed long.

Canon 3027

Hot happy dogs.

Canon 3017

On another note, Pallo had a full blood panel run earlier this week and is apparently normal. We're not sure what is causing his flyball aversion. Right now he is on some pain killers to see if that helps him perk up.

13 comments:

  1. Beautiful photos! Koira really is stunning!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great pictures! I love the soft look of the one picture too! Don't you hate when you get something great and have no idea how to get it again?!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Talk about a great background for photos.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Fantastic photos. :) Part of me wishes Elli's patch was bigger just so she could shine like Koira does in the sun, hah.

    Wait, did I miss something -- flyball aversion?

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a terrific idea for a background setting! These pictures are stunning! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Those are great pictures!'

    Any time I get a good one, it's really just by accident. I'm not sure what it is that prevents me from taking good pictures. I'm just lucky that Elka is so pretty!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Those are gorgeous photos! I love Koira's silly long tongue.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hey Pallo, Hey Koira, Jet here.

    Exquisite pics... the colors are so vivid and the wheat textures enhance the composition.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Soft picture had an aperture of f/5, which is more open than some of your other shots in the series, making it appear "softer". :)

    Are you shooting auto? I'm guessing Yes, as the aperture and exposure varied through the shots, suggestion the camera was picking the values. Have you tried Aperture mode (I think Cannon calls it "Av")?

    You set your aperture and the camera fiddles with the shutter speed/ISO to make the exposure work. If you don't like the manual modes, then try your "Portrait" scene mode, and the camera should do it all for you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Love the wheat and tongue effect! :)

    ReplyDelete
  11. BZ- I never use Auto. I believe I was shooting in Program, but the only values I was picking were ISO and white balance. I was in a hurry at the time, on the way somewhere, so didn't want to spend the time messing around with trying to figure out what shutter speed and aperture I needed to get decent picture (and with it so bright outside, I was leery of trusting my camera's screen to tell me if it looked okay).

    I actually have about ten shots that were totally blown out because I was shooting manual at the flyball tournament and had forgotten to change the settings. Lets just say that what works for an indoor, high speed sport is not the same that works for an outdoor, full sun portrait.

    ReplyDelete