Drummer - WC719

Meet Drummer, a working dog of a different flavour than my last two. Drummer is a Sheltie who takes care of a small flock of sheep, moving them wherever his owner wishes and bringing them in each night, and of course keeping watch over them from predators. He's also a killer agility dog, and as you can see, gets seriously taken care of himself. 

This late-summer we had some heavy smoke move in below the mountains from fires in BC, Montana and elsewhere in Alberta. It didn't take me long to realize it was creating some EPIC light and conditions for photography, so after "wasting" the first night in search of monster mule deer bucks, I called Drummer's owner and invited myself over for a little photo session while we had such soft, warm, near-magical light. 

I chose to photograph him in one of the fields he often works his sheep in, and wanted to leave a suggestion of the setting with the subdued haze the smoke created. I honestly missed the top of the fencepost above his head in the background in this particular pose, but he gave me lots of others to work with, so all was fine. For some crazy reason, I liked him on the diagonal here...he was standing slightly uphill, and when I put my camera to my eye I took a few shots on the level I decided it needed something a bit different and canted the camera a bit. Maybe the smoke was getting to me, but I kind of liked the result.

Quite the handsome boy, isn't he?

---------------------

Nikon D600
Nikkor AF-S 300mm f/2.8G IF-ED VR
ISO 400
1/100sec @ f/4.5
+0.33 stop overexposed from meter
Mounted on FEISOL CT-3372 Elite tripod with Acratech GV2 ballhead and Wimberley Sidekick
Full frame (not cropped)