AlphaRose Photography

We’ve researched, now we make!

TLDR:

Koda.
A lot of koda.

1. The Idea
   1. Brain Vomit
2. The Planning
3. The Taking
   1. Saturday:
   2. Sunday:
4. The Culling and Editing
   1. Lightroom
   2. Colour Preference
   3. Favourite Problem?
5. Honourable Mentions
6. The Big Three
7. Final Thoughts

Welcome to the creating portion of this week. Now that we’ve looked into what portraiture actually is, it’s time to make my own.

But where to start?

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The Idea

Following the research, I was left with two themes.

Cosplay and Family.

Cosplay is something I’ve done previously but only in the professional setting. What if we had a bit more fun with it, show the behind the scenes and the bits that don’t go quite right?

The piece that led me down this route was a mixture of “Kids of Cosplay by Thurstan Redding” and this photo from a shoot with Lottie:

The aspect of Cosplaying that you forget about. The fact they smoke, they drink, they do things outside of their character.

Moving onto family, it’s always one I’m thinking about. I live with my fiancée and our dog and they always pop up in my work one way or another. If you think your average, mid-20’s family, you expect the setting up a life, a career or even thinking about children. That’s not us. To show you what I mean… this was us after we bailed left Preston Pub Festival.

Dressing gowns, a few hours playing Satisfactory and snacks galore! Even our wedding isn’t normal but that’s for next year.

Brain Vomit

Yep. That’s what I call it. Where I type, don’t think and then realise I’ve spelt “photo” wrong 14 times. This is basically how I decide on an idea for these projects.

Things we need to take into account for both themes

• Ed isn’t home until Saturday Morning and is back in work Monday. This means I’ve got two days available with help.
• I have no finances to be able to put towards this.
• The weather is currently horrific with rain and strong winds so, ideally want to stay indoors.

We’ve got the issues that effect both, let’s shove down the pros and cons for each and narrow it down:

Topic	Pros	Cons
Family	-I’ve got more time available to take these images. – It’s a more personal topic – I get to take pictures of Ed and Koda	-We would need to do the Big Walk – Koda never stays in the same place long enough – What’s the actual meaning of this collection?
Cosplay	– Explore the unseen aspects of Cosplay – Work with Lottie ❤ – Weird and Wonderful Locations	– Lottie being available and able to get to Preston – Short time frame (One day shoot, 6~hours only) – Dependent on Weather & Locations

In a weird twist of fate, when talking to Lottie about this idea, she’s let me know she’s not available this weekend. This makes the choice for me.

We’re going to be taking more pictures of Koda! _{and Ed.}

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The Planning

Ed isn’t home until Saturday morning and normally uses the morning & early afternoon to recover and decompress. The joys of a 26 hour shift. This leaves me with Sunday. If we do anything in outside like the Big Walk, realistically we’ve only got until sunset. This time frame is getting smaller and smaller.

What’s my message though? I can’t just go around taking pictures of a Dog and his Dad with no theme.

To be honest, why doesn’t that be the message? Koda is probably the best choice we’ve ever made and has brought so much joy and love into our lives.

Yes the first few months were hell, the training and getting used to having the responsibility but now?

People often forget what it’s like having a pet, especially one that can hold so much personality. He’s a delight to have around, even if he does have more attitude than a teenager. He is literally the only reason I survive Ed being out the house so much. I swear, my neighbours must think I’m crazy with the amount I talk to him.

Either that or I’m just making excuses to take more pictures of Koda.

Idea Summary:

Having a pet is something that most people take for granted. Take a second, look at the animal and see the personality they hold.

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The Taking

Leading up to Saturday, I started building my ideas and seeing what I wanted. As I know Koda, how he reacts and his behaviours, this made planning easier. I would just need to encourage certain actions.

Heads up – I hadn’t told Ed any of this prior to him getting home. That was a fun conversation.

Saturday:

Ed came home and we had a very lazy morning. After explaining everything, we came up with a plan. Saturday was the natural day. Just taking the shots as they happen. Whether I get it or not, it doesn’t overly matter. This showed Koda in his natural behaviour.

The best example of this was when I went to the loo and, as always, Koda followed suit.

Can happily say this is the first time I’ve taken the camera with me to pee. Will not be doing that again.

There was one other factor that, as I started getting the random shots, I hadn’t taken into account. I’ve not cleaned our house in a few days and Koda is shedding like crazy. Personally I am mortified that I’m photographing my house in the state it’s in, Ed keeps telling me it adds “natural charm“. Let’s agree to disagree.

As the day went on, we started getting more shots and kept hitting more speed bumps in the road. A few to note:

• We’re not “Big Light” people. It’s dark and gloomy outside. Ergo, big light needed or high ISO.
• I couldn’t move fast enough of some occasion so ended up having to try and bribe Koda into doing it again. He would not cooperate.

Major Issue One – Lens & Zoom

Normally, I use the standard 18-150mm lens that came with the camera. I have done for the longest time. It does what I need it to do and hasn’t failed me yet.

That was until today. When trying to get the photos of Koda, he was way too close for the focus to grab him. Yes, this one goes back to 18mm but the focus struggles on close ups at that distance.

If you haven’t seen the entry from the Film Camera week, I’ll catch you up.

I need glasses. I do not currently have glasses. This means I rely a lot on auto-focus.

I have a 35MM lens that I ended up swapping over to to see what difference it made. Only downside is that it has a very sensitive auto-focus that’s just as temperamental as Koda.

_{And before my mum shouts at me again, yes! I’ll book the opticians soon!}

End of Day One:

I started looking through the photos and realised that a lot were suffering from one of the same two problems. Either the ISO was too high or Koda moved. After swapping the lens, I then noticed that the auto-focus was attempting to work against me, not with me. _{I really need to invest in glasses…}

I did notice one thing though that I wanted to investigate further on Sunday. I think Koda has become aware of when the camera is firing and is actively working against me. I know this sounds stupid but Koda is the kind of dog who knows what you want and will go completely against you.

Update – Yes, he knows. Yes, he’s working against me.

Sunday:

Another lazy start to the day but not a wasted one. As most of our days do, it started with cuddles and Koda deciding I wasn’t allowed in the bed anymore.

Today’s main task was The Big Walk. It’s a fantastic loop for Koda around Rural Preston but is a total of 5 kilometers. At Ed’s pace, we can do it in around 45 minutes. My pace, over an hour. I was praying that he matched my speed. (Spoiler Alert: He doesn’t).

For the walk, I chose to go fully into auto mode on the camera. I hated this choice however, with so much on my mind and the sun setting stupidly quick, I needed to put my trust in my camera.

After the torture session, I wrapped everything up and began uploading. In total, we had 291 images, a fair few not usable but a lot that held potential.

Time to Cull!

As a fun little extra – Ever wanted to see what it looks like when you successfully knacker out a Collie/Husky?

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The Culling and Editing

By the end of the first Cull, I was left with 141 images. I’d removed all that were completely unusable, failed attempts, or just of random junk.

I have a few of the same shot, just with minor differences, these are my next focus. For the next run through, I’ll focus on these and picking the ones that move onto the next round. Their new home?

Lightroom

75 Photos made it through into Lightroom.

At this point in my process, I like to go through each on individually and look at the finer details. Is there an issue with it and can I save it? Is it a favourite or just one that looked cool? This bit is the longest. My saving grace for this whole process was Lightrooms rating system. Once I’d messed about with it, I’d rate it. This not only let me know when I’ve already looked at an image but also what I thought about it in the end. For example:

Whereas I love the image, the composition is throwing me off. To simplify, Ed’s leg is in the way and no amount of cropping can fix that one. This made it a 4*, great but one really annoying feature I can’t fix.

A more negative example:

I always love it when Koda manages this. Smart Breeds, Sometimes stupid dog. The issue here is the headlight just behind Ed. It’s dragging the attention away. Still a 2* start but a rejected image, ultimately.

But Rosie, Why not try it in Black and White?

Well, imaginary person, it’s because Koda is a black and white dog and will blen- hang on a second.

You may be on to something here.

Normally, I only go into monochrome if it’s thematic for the piece or I’m just too lazy to colour correct. But maybe, for some of the weirdly lit images, it may be something worth trying. This just became a 4*, not quite 5. That headlight is still annoying me but is no where near as brutal.

After this, I’d flip each image between Monochrome and Colour to see what I preferred.

This image was one we’d tried to get Koda to do a few times. He normally jumps on this fence, trying to see the birds in the pond but this time, he really kicked up a fuss.

Colour Preference

Even though I’m working to a University brief, I’m always trying to add my flare. If you couldn’t tell, I love bold colours. Life is too boring without colour.

With this, comes the issue to colours being too bold. For example:

The colours are fantastic but the orange brick of the new builds are too bold and bright. I can try and isolate that colour but unfortunately, Koda is sat on the rumble strip that has the same colour pallet. With this image specifically, I left it as it is however, I may need to tone back my own preferences for this collection.

Favourite Problem?

Koda keeps turning purple.

Around his muzzle, his white patch ends up with a purple hue around it. I thought it was chromatic abrasions but no luck. No mater what I try, he’s becoming Violet Beauregard.

I tried turning the image to monochrome and isolating each colour, even then it’s picking up Koda’s muzzle as purple.

From looking into it more, this is mainly appearing in images from The Big Walk. I believe it’s due to the soft edges of his fur mixing with the natural light and his white patches. Is his fur actually a dark purple instead of a black?

It’s not even isolated to the one image, it’s appearing in a fair few that, I enjoyed the look of but any level of colour correction enhances the purple. If I do end up using any of these ones, it’ll most likely be in monochrome.

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Honourable Mentions

Narrowing down to the final 3 was tough.

I ended round three with 49 final images. Whereas 46 of them won’t ever be used, I don’t want these lost to the void.

Here are the ones that didn’t make it to the finale:

_{–Slideshow–}

I decided to add a watermark across these ones, especially now that I’m sharing on here. It felt more professional.

To Lottie’s annoyance and my twisted sense of humour, yes it’s in Comic Sans. I may be an adult, doesn’t mean I’m mature.

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The Big Three

Tug Time

This is the only toy that has survived the onslaught of Koda. Tug is his favourite game and if he brings you this rope, you must stop everything and play.

It is law.

I love this one for so many reasons. The colour contrast between the black and white of Koda and the yellow of the toy. You can see the joy in his eyes and the almost smile in his mouth. Given the war my auto-focus and I had, I seem to have won this battle.

Morning Cuddles

Morning cuddles are a ritual in our house. I often question why our bed is full of dog hair then remember these moments. The perfect bit about this is Koda’s smile. Ed doesn’t get to see it but you can just tell, he’s happy. He’s always been a cuddly dog, even if he doesn’t show it.

Composition wise, I couldn’t have wished for it to go any better. Koda is the main focus and you can see the smile. Ed’s just off to the side but you can tell he’s adoring the fluffy pile. This is one of the few images that needed to be in colour, it adds life and love to it.

Like father like son?

They often say dogs look like their owners. This photo just proves it. They’re both looking at me, squatting down in the hallways, in my bright pink jammies and thinking the same thing:

What the hell are you doing?

A completely accidental shot, Ed had just come out of the utility room, but one that shows so much. The stance they both have, the matching faces. I swear, if Ed had ears like a dog his would be in the same position. It’s also the fact Koda’s dropped his toy to see what I was doing.

It was a choice to turn this image monochrome, mainly due to the horrific lighting in our house. Needing a high shutter speed, I was stuck at a high ISO. I’m still figuring out ISO so 9/10 I get it way too high/low. If I’d left this in colour, it would have taken away from the image and statement at hand.

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Final Thoughts

Taking photos of people is always a weird one. I started off with static portraits of cosplayers and now, ending up with a range of photographs on my family. Maybe I did just want an excuse to take photos of Koda but ultimately, I loved it.

For me and my work going forward, I’ll probably end up back down this route. It’s beautiful in it simplicity. Whether that’s professionally with clients or just for fun. I’d love to just show the people around me.

As a personal project, I want to create a portrait collection focusing around my mum and dad. Portraits, whether we notice it or not, are memories on paper.