Frankie

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After I created this image, I ended up walking around the Tidal Basin a little more and didn’t like what I was getting. Once the sun started to come up a bit, the sky started to get less foggy and I was feeling less inspired. So I ended up just walking back to my car and driving home. On my way home, I noticed the fog getting heavier and heavier. I wished that there was more fog like that around the city.

But in the suburbs of Virginia, it was fantastic. When I turned into our neighborhood, I ended up driving past Andrew as he was taking Frankie on his morning walk. So I parked my car, grabbed my camera and asked if we could all walk down this trail behind our neighborhood. It’s just a small walking path that is hard to notice, but I knew with all the bare trees, it would give off this really cool, spooky vibe.

Luckily, Frankie is the easiest model to work with. And by the time I saw him, he was already almost done with his walk so he was tired. When I told him to “sit”, he literally just stood there and didn’t move. So I took his leash off and snapped a few pictures of him real quick.

My camera settings for this image are F4 at 1/500th sec and ISO 640 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm zoom lens.

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This past weekend was an unusual one. If you have been in the Washington DC area then you know that it pretty much skipped fall weather and went straight from summer to winter. We may have had a week or so of ‘warm’ weather but it didn’t last too long. So when I saw that Saturday was raining all day but Sunday was going to be a little foggy with the high in the 50’s, I knew I had to take advantage.

My original Sunday plans were canceled so Andrew and I were left with a whole afternoon to ourselves. That’s when we decided to take Frankie to the US National Arboretum. Neither Andrew or Frankie had ever been there so I thought it would be a great place to just get out of the house. That and the fact that a lot of it is paved and Frankie wouldn’t get too wet walking around was a huge plus.

Typically when the three of us are out together, I’m busy taking pictures while Andrew and Frankie are checking out the scene. When we arrived at the National Capitol Columns, I was happy to see the yellow shrubs in front of the columns. It was a great pop of color in an otherwise gloomy day but it needed something. Frankie obviously! LOL.

I called Andrew over and asked him to stand a little bit inside of the bushes and lift Frankie up above his head. I had no idea how it was going to turn out but I love it. LOL. It definietly has some Lion King vibes to it. Thankfully Frankie’s so great that he’s not even phased by all our weird ideas.

My camera settings for this image is F4.0 at 1/1600th sec at ISO 400 with my Sony A7II and 70-200mm lens.

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The best part about fall colors is that they are everywhere. You don’t really have to go far to enjoy them. Often times taking pictures around your neighborhood is just as good as going to Shenandoah National Park or anything like that. For example, Andrew and I spent some time in Manassas, VA over the weekend. Obviously Frankie had to come with us so we had a little mini photoshoot in the woods.

Now when most people think Manassas, they naturally think of the battlefields. But this was across the street from there. It was a great place to go with a whole bunch of trees. Plus Frankie is so photogenic, how could you go wrong 😉 In order to capture this, I had to take the stick he was chewing on out of his mouth and dangled it in front of my camera for him to look like he was looking at it. I was shooting on continuous and sort of hoped for the best. So when I first saw this image on my computer, I couldn’t help but smile.

Immediately all the captions started running through my head. For example…

  • ‘When they ask you if you want fries with that’
  • ‘When someone brings pizza to the party’
  • ‘When you’re sharing an ice cream cone and can’t wait for your next turn’

You get the idea. LOL.

Besides my furry model, I really enjoy looking at the shadows of this image. It was taken around noon so the shadows were extra long as the sun was right above us. I purposely had Frankie stand in the middle of two trees to help frame him and to make the image just a little more interesting to look at.

My camera settings for this image is F5.0 at 1/640th sec and ISO 500 with my Sony A7II and 16-35mm wide angle lens.

All photos available for print and licensing >

Speaking of adding a human element in your images... What about adding a puppy element? Dogs make the best models 🙂

We didn’t have much planned last weekend but all of us wanted to get out of the house. Including Frankie. So we ran a few errands and along the way stopped at James Madison Memorial Building. I have seen pictures of it on instagram, but never actually visited. Also, we didn’t get the chance to go inside because we had Frankie, but the outside was beautiful. I love all the repeating columns. They’re really different than the ones you’d see at the Jefferson Memorial or Lincoln Memorial because theres hardly any space in between them. It gives off a totally different effect. Plus these columns are a lot more straight and modern looking than the other memorials.

Frankie was the perfect model. You can’t see it but Andrew was standing just to the left of him in between the columns just to make sure nothing happened. But he just sat there and posed. It really wasn’t much effort at all to get him to sit like that. He didn’t even move until a group of people walked passed and all he wanted to do wag his tail and greet them as if they had walked into his home. To be honest, I did photoshop out his leash. It was just a long, red leash that totally didn’t go with the final image I was looking for. I love how he looks so tiny in this massive environment. I hope next time we’ll be able to go inside.

The day after I took this, I showed it to my nephews. They said that next time I should photograph Frankie on a throne. LOL. I think their dad has been watching a bit too much of Game of Thrones. LOL.