Doing A dog show tomorrow. Any advice?

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DinoS

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As title, I'm doing a dog show tomorrow. I'm then going to have a laptop and sell the pic on CDs for £6.

any other advice, tips, hints etc

much appreciated.

mark
 
Fun Show, just to rasie money for local church. But will have agility, terrier racing etc.
 
No Advice, but I would imagine at the price they should sell like hot cakes :thumbs:
( you may even get away with a tenner as its in a good cause)
 
Probably stating the obvious here but, get down to the dog's level unless you particularly want pictures looking down at the dog. Take a squeeky toy - I have taken a squeaker out of one that I put in my mouth and blow to get them looking at the camera. Terriers might go a bit overboard with a squeaker so have a variety of small toy and dog treats about your person.

Owners generally try and get the dog to look at them- where ever they happen to be standing. Try and diplomatically explain that you usually get a better picture if the dog looks at the camera or in that general direction -or at least not facing away from the camera.

Is this the sort of thing you wanted?
 
Hi Mark
I found that taking a shot of the dog about to or mid jump rather than landing is best for me anyway and also a lower view point

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Dave
 
What lens did you use just dave?

Kerioak, I havn't done one before so not sure what to expect. Do you normally go round and take pictures of the dog on agility etc and how do people know i will take portarits and action? should i have a sign on my back?
 
Oh i have those lenses. Those pictures are great. Hope i can comeout with someting like it.

Now i'm also offereing prints after the show. Any tips on quickly doenloading a card onto a computer and letting people look at them.

How do you get people to see there pics in hundreds. any tips
 
What's that??? Is it a bird, is it a plane................................ No its SuperDog! [SD] :clap:

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Fantastic picture!
 
Have you spoken to the organisers? If so and they approve they will probably mention it over the tannoy. If you do this alone are you going to have time to take pictures, download them to your computer, make sure they are okay and then transfer them to CDs? Will your laptop battery last all day/afternoon. Can you leave it in a secure place?

Why not put them on your website for people to look at? Take business cards if you have them and order forms with you. I leave order forms on the Secretary's (or whoever) table and include the offer a free print if someone spends over a certain amount within so many days of a show - this prompts them to look quickly.
 
the shows only 3 hours. I have someone coming to help look after stand with price lists, etc on it.

The laptop will stay with them and i will give them card for them to download, should i show people in DPP or Windows expoler or?
 
I had a friend who entered his dog at the local show......


his case comes up next month :coat::lol:

Seriously though, you might be better trying to take a printer along if you can get access to power (or ideally a portable printer) as most people want a print to take away there and then, not something on a disc, especially if they aren't all that pc literate.
 
I'm doing order forms for prints, will that work ok?
 
How are you planning to shoot -raw or jpeg? Are you taking samples of your work for people to view? If you take "hundreds" of pics then even just downloading them is going to be a fair old task - are people going to hang around after the show to view/order?

How are you going to cope with taking pics/orders/processing/making cds all at once - even with an assistant, someone always needs to man the sales stand whilst the other takes pics/processes etc. If you are away taking pics can the other person handle the rest of the workload on their own?

Also, there is the power issue - if you don't have mains electricity then you'll run through a laptop battery, even a good one, in no time....
 
I can get mains thats not a problem, I am going to shoot jpeg

I may have to work on shooting 1 pic per dog over one area, such as one jump and once i got 30 or 50 take the card back download , get them downloaded. and go back. I will have two people working with me one to sell, one to burn cds, download etc.
 
DinoS said:
Oh i have those lenses. Those pictures are great. Hope i can comeout with someting like it.

Now i'm also offereing prints after the show. Any tips on quickly doenloading a card onto a computer and letting people look at them.

How do you get people to see there pics in hundreds. any tips
Click to expand...

Create a contact sheet with all the images on it. This will give them a preview of the image so they can decide whether or not to have it printed :thumbs:
 
I'd have a number of smaller cards, and send runners back and forth with them.

Or buy a D3 and write to two cards at once. RAW on one huge card, JPEGs on smaller cards, get the JPEGs done on site and RAWs later for printing. Perhaps a slightly tongue in cheek expensive option there :).
 
Take a selection of your best dog photos printed at largish sizes so people have an idea as to what they're getting. Make sure that the disks you're burning for people work. Mark the disks with the filenames or numbers so IF the disks fail you can send them a replacement (along with a very apologetic note!) by return of post rather than searching for a picture of "a cute little terrier type thing with a ribbon in its hair"... Maybe take a little Selphy type printer to do a 6x4 print.
 
Done a little bit of pet photography and found that a little bell, (you know like those tacky porcelein one's you get from tourist shops) works brilliantly. A squeeky toy tends to make them go nuts and bark and want to go after it. Whereas the bell just alerts them long enough to get the shot before they realise it's nothing important.

Also, I think people tend to shoot pets a lot like human portraits with them being the sole animal. Found that people really like shots when other animals are involved (dogs are pack animals so they make all sorts of great expressions when interacting with other dogs) which is ideal in your situation. A piccy of their little terrier playing with his mates or flirting with another dog is great angle.

Cheers,

A
 
Did one back in May (no agility though), from that I learnt:

* Its noisy
* A long lens is good to frame fill and f2.8 is very handy to blur the background.
* Watch for the feet of the dog and include them - it's all to easy to leave them out the frame.
* Dog portraits sold bettter than shots of the show - go round and ask people if they would like photos of their dog.
* People will all come at once at the end of the day - you'll need more than 1 computer to view from (I lost a number of sales because people got bored waiting).
* Hand out business cards like their going out of fashion and have the photos on it within 24 hours

I printed on site using a Dye Sub so couldn't give you an idea of how CDs go down, seems like a lot of work. How much are you selling for?
 
Hi,

Thanks everyone. Simon your points make sense and i need to make sure i try and do that. My only issue is i only have a sigma 70-300mm which is F5.6 at the long end. Too late now though.

The CD'S are £7.50 with £1 going to the charity.

I am also doing prints but people order now, and i will deliver later.
 
I was shooting, for fun, at a Gun Dog Show............

'have you got any of the Black Lab mate'

Erm, erm, well looking at the screen I have about 600 pics of Black Labradors, lesson learnt, take a picture of Dog with Handler at the start, shoot trial for that dog, shoot dog with handler, shoot trial with for that dog and so it continues !
 
DinoS said:
The CD'S are £7.50 with £1 going to the charity.
Click to expand...

I think that's abit low given the effort - try £12.50 with £2.50 going to charity, especially if they are getting a number of photos on the disc. You'll get a better return on each one and so will the charity.
 
missus shows her dog at shows, whereas i and my staffie just create a holy one.The togs where we attend in the various areas have web sites which you go on and select the prints if any you want 12x10.As for most of your shots the advice given by the others is good. If champ show or open i try to get one of dog on table, the owner has it posed ready for judge. one being looked at by judge and one walking, one receiving or with rossette if applic.. Fly ball and agility action shots and maybe candid portrait if poss.Charity a mixture and maybe some from the novelty side best six legs most like owner. I use a 135mm lens as i am allowed near to dog area. Best of luck dont forget to post some on forum.
 
Thanks,

Anyone got any main tips of how to sort images to stop, you get a pic of my jack russell?

yes ive got 300! as dsreeds said.

So any advice on how to deal with this
 
Hi all:wave:

only just found this site and came accross this post, as it happens i shot a pet show earlier in the year. I took around 1000 shots over the course of 2 hours and my partner went around collecting the payment of £10 from people who wanted their dog photographed and then made their way over to me in order to have the photograph taken.

I took lots of pet portrait style and even more general and burnt the lot on to a couple of cd's and posted them to the address they had given my partner (along with the £10) this made it really easy as everyone got their shot they had posed for along with every other shot taken on the day (dogs mingling, agility etc)

worked for me and the cash was instant:woot:

50D (soon)
 
DinoS said:
Thanks,

Anyone got any main tips of how to sort images to stop, you get a pic of my jack russell?

yes ive got 300! as dsreeds said.

So any advice on how to deal with this
Click to expand...

Pro cameras have a small microphone so you can record notes with photos "Start of (Dog Name) (Owner Name)", etc. You can then sort them later with that.

I carry a pen and notepad to make notes when shooting, jotting down the settings used (when using film), people's names and e-mail addresses if they want copies of the photos, that sort of thing.
 
Now done the show. went very well and they were very happy with the shots.

Thanks for all your advice,

will post pics later.

thanks

mark
 
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