During the summer months, Belltown Dance Studio holds public Salsa dancing events at Seattle locations such as Alki Beach and Westlake Park. Organizers spread out a portable dance floor and provide a nearly non-stop selection of Latin dance music. During the past two Alki events, the sun was shining and the dancing was hot!

Several weeks ago I spent a few hours with Sora taking pictures on a beautiful November day. I posted some pictures from that session in a previous blog post here. Sora has late-stage insulinoma and is enjoying spending the holidays with her family. Saturday I had the opportunity to create more memories of Sora and the other members of her family. Here are some of those images…

Here’s Sora wearing a Christmas ribbon…

Zoe is watching Sora keep her blood sugar level up by eating honey and peanut butter…

Mom watches from the couch while Sora chews on the squirrel…

This is Zoe and Rex, Sora’s brother and sister. Zoe is a 5 year-old angel, and Rex is a sweet heart of a dog.

Today I had the extreme pleasure of photographing Casey and Zoe. These two senior citizens live with their mom Catherine in the Madison Valley neighborhood of Seattle. Casey is a 13.5 year old mix of “…maybe sheltie and spaniel, and possibly some golden,” says Catherine. While she’s not 100% sure of Casey’s heritage, one thing she knows for certain is that he is a very sweet dog. And I can attest to that. He spent most of the session wanting to get closer to me so that I would pet him and cuddle.

Zoe is a 9 year old chihuahua, who is missing her right front paw. Zoe was a bit standoffish at first, but her curiosity soon won and she investigated what Casey and I were doing. It is clear that this little girl is full of personality.

Despite Casey’s advanced age, he still looks like a puppy…

Zoe has good looks and a charming personality…

Group shots…

Two more…

This past weekend in Seattle was just gorgeous. The sun was out, temps approached the 60′s, and the dog parks were packed with dogs and humans. Unfortunately, during the middle of the day all that bright sun meant harsh lighting. But that is when the dogs were out. So I grabbed my camera and my low rig and headed out for some magic.

About the low rig. I’ve been thinking about ways to get low to the ground without having to crawl around on knee pads. I also want to be able to run with the camera low and have the dogs trail behind. I spent a lot of time searching the internet for a ready made solution to my problem. I considered The $14 Steadycam as an option and nearly purchased all the parts and pieces to make one. Then it occurred to me that I was thinking inside the box— that the camera needed to be right-side-up in order to take a picture. When I was able to wrap my brain around the idea that it didn’t matter to the photograph if the camera is right side up, the solution was simple. And I could put it all together using components I already had. My low rig consists of my camera with a cable release mounted to my monopod. I grab the monopod by the foot and hang the camera upside down. Later, I right the images in post-production. Simple.

Reactions to my rig were mixed: “What the …”

This pug looks sternly disapproving, while most dogs were curious about the low rig and the camera shutter noise.

“Whatchya got there?”

“Go ahead, kick the ball. I dare ya.”

Some dogs were intent on licking my 14-24mm lens, which has such a curved front element that you can’t attach a filter. Yuck!

The next step will be to add some sort of noise maker like a pneumatically controlled squeaky toy to the camera. That should be fun!