Now that school is over, I've been trying to catch up on all the barn work that got put on the back burner. Taking photos of kids is probably at the bottom of the list, priority-wise, but at the top of the list of things I actually WANT to do, which is why last night included a late-night photo shoot of some of the older babies. However, trying to take photographs of bouncy, bratty, squirmy kids is not unlike herding cats - never mind that some of them have been in multiple show rings, they conveniently forget everything they ever learned about standing still and looking pretty. I managed to get a few good photos thanks to my intrepid photographer - my sister Rachel - who braved allergens, hair-chewing and flying baby goat bodies to take them for me. (I made the mistake of letting all the photo candidates out at once, and they thought it was great fun to fling themselves across the barn, at the camera-holder or - for super-extra-special fun - at the goat currently being bodily forced to stand still for a photo.) Normally I would take photos just outside the barn, on clean concrete with the dark-green tin of the barn as a background - which usually results in very nice, sharp pictures. However, tonight we used the wall inside the barn as a background - even though the floor was dirty, it was the least distracting area we could find. (My usual "photo area" is currently home to a lumber pile, and it was dark out so we needed a place inside the barn.)
Actually snapping a photo while the goat is set up, standing still and standing in such a way that they actually look good (for instance, NOT leaning backward, which does wretched things to the appearance of their topline and shoulders) is waaaay harder than it sounds. It's best to take a photo at the goat's level so as not to make their legs look short, which meant Rachel was sitting on the ground and being regularly accosted by baby hooves and noses and hair-snatching mouths. Finding a good backdrop without too much "busy stuff" in the background and of an appropriate color to set off the goat is also difficult, and it's not very attractive to have loose goats (or worse, half of a loose goat) in the background of your photo. Sometimes I can get a photo that I like right away, but the usual case is to take a few dozen photos and settle for the best one with a sigh, after sorting through all the photos and discarding most of them for various reasons. Below are a few examples of Regalia's photo shoot to give you a better idea of the process...enjoy!
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| Take 1: Kauai decides to stick her nose in...literally. |
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| Take 2: Gali doesn't look too bad, but Lisbon's decided to join the fun. |
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| Take 3: Lisbon getting the boot. |
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| Take 4: Gali channels her bratty side. |
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| Take 5: The "I DON WANNA" pose. |
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| Take 6: ...Actually not too bad. It'd be nice if her face was visible though. (She's getting the "LET'S FOCUS, PUNK" talk for the fourteenth time.) |
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| Take 7: She moved her foot. |
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| Take 8: The "I REALLY DON WANNA" pose. |
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| And, of course, the photo in which she is looking her absolute best is a) one of the first ones we took, and b) a blurry one. Oh well, it's late and I'll take what I can get! |
