Saturday, May 8, 2010 found several dog and handler teams attending a Duck Herding Clinic given by Trudy Viklund at Brigand’s HideOut near Vancouver, Washington. It was a gorgeous day and we had awesome ducks to practice with and learn from. Many of the dogs had had very little, if any experience on ducks prior to the clinic. It was amazing to watch the different ways that each dog approached this new task. As you can see from this photograph, the young Miniature Australian Shepherd was quite excited and leaped into the experience with aires above the ground !!! He attempted to match this duck’s exact movements. They look like pretty good dance partners, don’t they?
Speaking of photography, because that is the other important element of this blog….not just dogs!……this type of photography is often quite a challenge. Pretty much everything about it is unpredictable. You need to be ready to track the dogs in any direction, and sometimes, like this young Aussie, they move in all directions…at very high speeds. In many of my photos, he is pretty much a blur! If I had not been following him with my lens and firing off shots at a very fast speed, I never could have captured this photo. It probably happened so quickly that even the human eye did not register the moment. That is what I love about photography…capturing those moment and it is such a great feeling when you get it right!
Many people say that photography is all about light….how the photographer handles the light on his subject and adjusts the camera accordingly. When shooting dogs herding any livestock, the lighting situation is constantly changing, as the dogs run from full sun to intense shade…..all I can say is thank goodness for Light Room and Photo Shop, which are the products that I use to correct and enhance images! Full sun is not always your friend, as it allows some parts of an image to become blown out and you loose detail, so I am always looking for ways to adjust for that. Unlike in portrait photography, you can not really choose your background…which creates interesting dilemmas at times! It certainly helps to have a camera and lens that really focus and adjust quickly. I was so reminded of this when one of the handlers asked me to grab some photos of her session with her little point and shoot. I have not seen them yet, but am guessing that they were not very good…..I felt like I could count to ten from the time I pressed the button until I heard the camera take the picture…..! That was painful….LOL!
In case you are wondering, I am a Nikon girl all the way. My camera of choice is the Nikon d700 and my favorite lens for this type of shooting is this one AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon . I would love to get more reach with a lens, but this combination already weighs several pounds I can not hand hold any more. A tripod or monopod would be way too problematic for this type of photography.
By the end of the day, there was great improvement in all of the dogs and I was able to capture many of their moments of brilliance with my camera! For those who know very little or nothing about herding, one of the many tasks that the dog needs to accomplish when herding is to keep an eye on the outside eye of the lead duck. By doing that he can better judge where they are going next and the duck understands who is in charge! If you look at the following images, you can definitely see that being demonstrated by all of the dogs.
How about a little Shadowing?
One of the participating dogs was not quite sure of the ducks. Trudy decided to try to interest him by bringing in her dog Tick, who is a very talented and seasoned herding dog and let him shadow her for awhile. He was very intent on following Tick around as she showed him how its done…….
Tick was all fine with this as long as he kept his distance,, but boys will be boys…..we all started laughing when we saw her giving him
“THE LOOK“!
…….and she does it so well!……..”just back off buster, and I mean NOW!”
It was an awesome clinic and a beautiful day……Thank you Trudy for such a great workshop and thanks to Brigand’s for sponsoring it!
For anyone interested more images can be viewed and or purchased here: (click on Events Galleries and choose the Duck Clinic)
Dancing Dog Photography/Debbie Z Dunne/Pet & People Photography/Portland,Oregon
by DancingDogPhotography/Debbie Z Dunne
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