Last week, as we were driving down to West Palm Beach, Florida (teaching and clients), we received a call from the Beagle Freedom Project (BFP).
A testing facility that used beagles had been shut down in Oklahoma, and 200 beagles were being placed with fosters around the country.
Eight beagles were coming to Jacksonville, Florida. BFP was calling to see if we would be willing to photograph these sweet rescued beagles -- who had been born and raised at the testing facility with little human contact and no ability to bond with a forever human -- as they took their very first steps to freedom.
Of course we said yes!
Challenges...
Photographing wasn't going to be easy as you might have noticed that the above behind the scenes images are at night.
Yes, the beagles were arriving at night, which if you're a photographer, you know that this requires as much constant light as you can possibly muster, no strobes or flash (the beagles coming from these situations are very sensitive), fast glass (we used our 85mm f/1.2, and high ISO. To be able to have eyes and nose of the beagles in focus and to stop motion as much as possible, we were shooting at f/5.6, 1/500 and whereever the ISO needed to be, often above 10,000 and sometimes as high as 25,600.
It was past 11 pm when we were finally able to start opening crates and letting each pup enjoy his or first step of freedom.
If you are interested in fostering or adopting a beagle from the BFP or would like to know more about how you can help, go to their web page at: www.bfp.org.
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