Sparky in La Jolla

Sparky the pooch had a ball in La Jolla last week, and he showed it by handing out lots of kisses!

I met this family in La Jolla during their trip out from Arizona, and we had a great time playing on the beach together.

For this weekday morning session, I knew we’d be on a pretty empty beach with wide open spaces, so I chose my favorite 70-200mm lens for this session. To see why I like to use shorter lenses for more crowded days & tight spaces, check out THIS POST from a few weeks ago.

A few people have asked how I created the image I shared yesterday:

Here are some details:

ISO 100

f/2.8 (Av mode, so I let the camera choose the shutter speed)

One Shot focusing mode (focused on the footprints closest to me)

Later on the computer, I used Kevin Kubota’s X-process Combo action to create the funky color, and I used his “add grain” action to put in that grain, too.

Yesterday when I was in a hurry to create that “sneak peek” for my blog, I had created two blog images, but I only ended up sharing one because the other one was … well… crappy. I didn’t realize it until I saw it as a little thumbnail, and when I took a closer look at that image, I realized that I had really screwed it up in Photoshop.

Look at the tiny version of this picture:

Can you see how there’s an “aura” around Sparky and his humans?

Look at it in the bigger version of the blog image I made yesterday:

I wanted to make the sky look even more blue, but I didn’t want to darken the people or Sparky.

Admittedly, I was working way too quickly, but sometimes this can even happen when I’m being very careful and patient. This is a REALLY common mistake made by Photographers who use Photoshop or Lightroom brushes a lot, and it screams “THIS PICTURE WAS PHOTOSHOPPED!!!” I’m glad I caught myself before I put it on my blog yesterday, but as I was sitting getting my haircut (that’s why I was rushing — I was late for my appointment!), I thought it would be cool to show people what I’d *almost* put up on my blog and why I decided to leave it out of that “sneak peek” yesterday.

Here’s the real version of the image, without the “aura”

I still love the blue of the sky, and I think it looks good without the extra OOMPH (and resulting aura).

By the way, looking at images in a small thumbnail view is a GREAT way to get a fresh perspective on images. If an image doesn’t look good as a thumbnail, there’s usually a very good reason.  Sometimes flaws that you don’t see in the “big” version are more obvious in a thumbnail — and that is exactly what happened to this picture yesterday!

And here’s are a few more of Sir Sparky:

Enjoy!

About carey

Wife & Mother. Photographer & soccer player. Singer to standing-room-only showers.