One of the challenges I face with publicly committing to photographing Nico every day is recognizing that a good chunk of the photos aren’t going to be great because I don’t have enough time to create great photos. Some days, I come home dead tired, and all I can muster up the energy to do is take a picture of Nico curled up on the couch. On other days, I look forward to working with Nico as we create a photograph. One thing I recently noticed I’ve learned is how to take good photos of Nico in a relatively short period of time. We spent about 15 minutes in the yard this evening for this image. During that time, I took a total of 41 frames. This was hardly from ideal lighting conditions, with the sun setting through the trees and just a bit of light in one area of our yard. The low light and the mixture of light and shadow make it more difficult for my camera to focus on Nico’s eye. But with Nico’s great obedience skills, I was easily able to have him sit at the edge of a sunny patch and run towards me on command. We worked through a few different angles and failed a few times because Nico took a different path or the camera wouldn’t hold focus on him. But we got this image and with another 15 minutes of editing, we have a decent final image. And then I do it all again tomorrow.

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