Last weekend I had a brilliant time photographing Minni, she is a lovely dog and clearly loved having her picture taken!

She's got a few tricks and even has a bit of a name for herself as a skateboarding dog so we brought along a few props to show some of what she can do. The weather was absolutely perfect and the shoot couldn't have gone better.

The owner ended up with a strong selection of colour photos and as always I converted them to black and white so they had the option to print those as well.

We had a lot of fun with all of the props and Minni's getting prepped for dog shows so she is very well trained and was very happy to run about on demand. It took a couple of runs to get the running shots right but I'm happy with how they turned out.

We changed location half way through to bring a bit of variety and although the bluebells have gone, we found a little patch of blue flowers and some buttercups.

I think that I would have liked a denser patch of buttercups but they turned out well, and at the end of this shoot I was really happy with almost every photo taken!

We wandered to the woods near West Stoke last weekend and had a great time taking a few shots of the wee ones. The old adage about not working with children or animals rang true once or twice but they were (mostly) fantastic and we managed some good shots.

 I didn't take much equipment beyond the camera and a few spare lenses, I really couldn't see the camera staying on a tripod! Some extra light could have helped and I'll think about an wireless flash next time. It'd help fill the shadows a little.

 It's true, actual sun in the uk! We did take a few props such as the balloons and chair etc.

 These two turned out really well :) Just having a few clicks after we thought we'd finished and they turned out to be really nice shots.

 The Sony alpha 77 and tamron 17-50 are turning out to be a solid partnership, I don't think that lens has left the camera in a long time now. Fast autofocus, very reliable and great IQ at all f-stops.

As always, I'm finishing with a personal favourite!

Who'd believe that it's already March! It's been so busy with house moves, Christmas and all sorts going on that the blog's been somewhat neglected. But anyway, here are a few pictures of two lovely (and pretty lively) Labradoodles shot a short while ago.

It was a busy shoot as they were very enthusiastic dogs, but we found a dark bit of curtain to shoot against and lots of doggy treats to distract them. Getting the lighting right was the hard bit as they were so mobile but with the flash on remote and off to the side pointing at the ceiling it worked fairly well.

As always, I was using the Sony Alpha 77 matched with a Tamron 17-50 and it's performed a sterling job, you need a fast and reliable auto-focus with animals and I have to say that it performed very well!

These last few images are my favourites, the lighter wall works really well with the dogs and gives them a great colour.