I have been studying lighting patterns and retouching techniques for fine art black and white portraiture for a couple of years now. I love the clean, elegant look and the strong focus on the subjects.

I always suggest it as an option in the pre-session consultation but to date it's not been the right fit for what clients had in mind for their portraits - until Amanda and Bean. I've photographed this pair before, but only outside. We've created the classic Texas portrait in our state flower, the bluebonnet, but have never had them in the studio.

Bean is doing great, but she is getting older and Amanda wanted portraits of just she and her, capturing their special relationship.  It's been quite cold here in the Dallas - Fort Worth area (and as of this writing, we're covered under a blanket of snow and sub-freezing temperatures, but finally have our power back - for now anyway), so a studio session was the obvious choice. 

When I showed Amanda examples of the type of images I wanted to create, she was 100% on board. Her mother and sister joined her at the reveal and at one point, we were ALL crying (in a good way). This. This is exactly what I wanted to create. 

It's week 7 of the Pet Photography 52-Week Project and the subject is "deep depth of field", which is somewhat anathema to how most of us pet photographers capture images. We (and our clients) love that soft, blurry background which is captured with a shallow depth of field. With these fine art black and white pet portraits, I wanted a somewhat "documentary" feel so captured them at a deep depth of field with my aperture set at f/9.0 so everything is in focus. 

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