Its all gone to the dogs!

Messiah Khan · 4 May 2008 at 23:12

Went to the 'all England Whippet derby' today. Weather was rubbish all day, but it turned out to be quite interesting and good opportunity for shots.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

xirokx · 4 May 2008 at 23:20

beautiful

loving your work

i especially enjoy the way in which your work literally speaks and say something..

what kit do you use?

Bubo · 5 May 2008 at 00:20

Any chance of posting any as shot pics with no post processing so we can see the effect?

King4aDay · 5 May 2008 at 00:30

Heh, liking these a lot dude. Better than I was expecting given our chat on msn

Although, something looks a bit weird abut the dog's head in the first shot!

ElDude · 5 May 2008 at 00:42

You'll have to forgive my ignorance of dog racing as I've never been, but what is it they run on? Is it grass (looks like it), and if so I think the shots with the dogs running would probably look better in colour.

ZG002 · 5 May 2008 at 01:17

Looks like grass here. But its normally sand i belive

Messiah Khan · 5 May 2008 at 20:31

Thanks guys.

xirokx said:
beautiful

loving your work

i especially enjoy the way in which your work literally speaks and say something..

what kit do you use?

For these I used a Nikon D300 + Sigma 300mm f2.8.

Bubo said:
Any chance of posting any as shot pics with no post processing so we can see the effect?

Before:

After:

King4aDay said:
Heh, liking these a lot dude. Better than I was expecting given our chat on msn

Although, something looks a bit weird abut the dog's head in the first shot!

Yeah, I think the black and white conversion has made the edge of the ear go a bit funny. Is this what you mean?

ElDude said:
You'll have to forgive my ignorance of dog racing as I've never been, but what is it they run on? Is it grass (looks like it), and if so I think the shots with the dogs running would probably look better in colour.

Its on grass. Its basically a football field that they put a fence on. I quite like the colour version, but I prefer the black and white versions. It also fits better into my little collection of people and animals in black and white that ive got going.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 5 May 2008 at 20:36

No way! Black n white all the way.
v good image that one of the 3 dogs racing.

collisster · 5 May 2008 at 20:41

should crop out the cloned out fence and have the dogs jumping out of the picture

nice photos tho

Russinating · 5 May 2008 at 20:42

Love number 3! Why don't my B&W conversions look as good as yours!?

Oxygen · 5 May 2008 at 22:12

Really like no 1 & 2 from this set MK. Great composition on no 1, the black & white processing gives the set an editorial feel. Looks to have been a good day out.

Out of interest, what are the dogs chasing? cos they look like they want it really bad...

dirtybeatfreak · 5 May 2008 at 22:14

i think number 4 is stunning, dont know if its just me, but it shows more than just the dog in the cage, you have undone yourself yet again imo, amazing m8

9designs2 · 5 May 2008 at 22:46

Yep more great shots, some comments just from my view.....
Do you use some Duo tone or similar on the post process, I really like your B&W post processing, but seem to remember you don't just do a straight channel remix and conversion ??....

OK,
No1 May be favourite, just great.
No2 Nice shot, closer crop maybe ?
No3 Least favourite, can you get a really tight crop on it...
No4 Like this one a lot, but too much dead image Bottom and Right, would crop a little off, to see if it still works, danger could be main subject becomes to central, and hence looses impact ( IE rule of thirds broken)
No.5 Excellent, BUT clone out the white mark on the forehead, it's very distracting once you've seen it !!

As always some great B&W work....more please

SteveOBHave · 7 May 2008 at 12:35

1 and 4 are deffo stand outs. Stunning shots.

ElDude · 7 May 2008 at 17:09

Fstop11 said:
No way! Black n white all the way.
v good image that one of the 3 dogs racing.

Yeah I agree, now I've seen the colour

Messiah Khan · 8 May 2008 at 13:37

Thanks everyone.

rghjones said:
Love number 3! Why don't my B&W conversions look as good as yours!?

Because they're not black and white.

Oxygen said:
Great composition on no 1, the black & white processing gives the set an editorial feel.

Thank your for the compliment. This is the direction im trying to stear some of my B&W work in.

Oxygen said:
Out of interest, what are the dogs chasing? cos they look like they want it really bad...

Its supposed to be a rabbit, but infact its just a bundle of plastic strips tied to a wire which is then attached to a motorised winder thing.

9designs2 said:
Yep more great shots, some comments just from my view.....
Do you use some Duo tone or similar on the post process, I really like your B&W post processing, but seem to remember you don't just do a straight channel remix and conversion ??....

OK,
No1 May be favourite, just great.
No2 Nice shot, closer crop maybe ?
No3 Least favourite, can you get a really tight crop on it...
No4 Like this one a lot, but too much dead image Bottom and Right, would crop a little off, to see if it still works, danger could be main subject becomes to central, and hence looses impact ( IE rule of thirds broken)
No.5 Excellent, BUT clone out the white mark on the forehead, it's very distracting once you've seen it !!

As always some great B&W work....more please

Cheers 9designs2. Yeah they are all duotoned. I still love my 'platinum' duotone preset in lightroom, but im playing with some more subtle toning like in this lot. I use the Lightroom duotoning tool, and push a bit of green into the shadows and a tiny bit of yellow into the highlights.

I tried closer crops on the shots you mentioned, but they didn't work imo. I liked them wider with some context of the race. ie in the 2nd shot you can see the cages they start in.

See what you mean about the white mark in 5. not sure how I missed that, and as you say once you've seen it, it becomses very annoying.