Saturday Snap - Our Dog Family

Three or more times during the week I write a bit about tactical leadership, strategy or performance management.  But work isn't everything I do with my time.  Among other things, I am an avid photographer.  Each Saturday, mainly for my own enjoyment, I post one of the photos I'm most proud of.  Please feel free to:

• Ignore it, or
• Enjoy it, or
• Share it (as long as you don't use it for commercial purposes and do tell people where you got it).

This week's photo

There are 11 of us in the family - all shown in this composite photo.  We got into fostering homeless dogs a couple of years ago, and have helped around 30 find new homes in that time.  Another nine somehow ended up as permanent members of our family.

[Click on the thumbnail to see a larger version.]

Starting from the bottom right hand corner, and going clockwise, they are:

• Mr. B - a ten-year old beagle that showed up at our back door in January of 2005, emaciated (ten pound less than this photo) and full of heartworm.
• The little black and white chihuahua is Locita, which our friend Sherry tells us means "little crazy woman."  Locita loves to be held, but growls if you pet her.  Strange, but one of my personal favorites.  We kept her because folks who came to adoption day at the pet store were frightened by her.
• Melee is a three-legged schnoodle.  Her original owners accidentally ran over her in their driveway, then did not want to pay for her care.
• Brie is the little terrier-chihuahua mix in the bottom left corner.  She is Cynthia's favorite (but don't tell the rest).
• Violet is next.  Don't have any idea what breed she is.  She is the first one we kept.
• Simba is the beautiful pomeranian lying down next to Violet.  His hair had not quite fully recovered from his homeless ordeal in this picture.  Today it is glorious.
• Sassy is the dachshund-something else mix.
• Next to Sassy is Freckles, a mix between Boston terrier and who-knows-what.
• Finally, in the upper right, is Mardi.  She's a mix between Cairn terrier and American Eskimo.

Technical details

We found it impossible to get all nine dogs to pose nicely in one sitting, so this is a composite.  I used a Canon EOS 20D to shoot the photos, all with camera mounted flash.  Here are the exposure details:

• Shot on July 30, 2006
• Format:  Camera RAW, 16 bit depth
• Shot at ISO 100, 1/60s at f/5
• 40mm lens

I processed the composite in Adobe CS2, using 18 layers to create the final product.  The layers allowed me to get each dog just right, and blended in for maximum effect.  Layers also allow me to move dogs around in the photo wherever I want - up, down, sideways, and toward the front or toward the back.

Here is a list of the layers, starting from the bottom and working up:

1. Background - a shot of the backdrop with no dogs.
2. My face, blended in luminosity mode at 24%.
3. Cynthia's face, blended in luminosity mode at 8%.
4. Mardi.
5. Sassy.
6. Desaturate Sassy's pupils to take out red eye (using saturation blending mode).
7. Darken Sassy's pupils in overlay mode at 33% opacity.
8. Freckles.
9. Adding a bit to Freckles' tail - some was missing from the main shot due to a cloth fold.
10. Violet.
11. Simba
12. Melee.
13. Increase Melee's pupil highlights painting white on a blank layer and blending using luminosity mode.
14. Desaturate Melee's fur. This is the one shot taken elsewhere using different lighting (the ones I took of her on July 23 were all bad), and her fur looked like a 80 year old lady's blue rinse job.
15. Locita.
16. Mr. B.
17. Mr. B's rear left foot, which was covered by cloth in the main shot.
18. Brie.

On each of the layers, I used a layer mask to conceal any parts not needed in the composite.  For the web, I converted from Adobe RGB to sRGB and saved as a jpeg.