Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppies

As you can see from my posts, I like photographing pretty much everything (except sports and parties). At the top of the list, though, is puppy photography. I love dogs more than anything, and puppies are so adorable, endearing, and entertaining. If I had to limit myself to one subject, it would be puppies. Early on, I learned that rambunctious puppies that are constantly squirming around -- and difficult to photograph -- tire out quickly. And when they are tired, you can do anything to them. They couldn't care less. They are like punch-drunk . . . oblivious to the world. So, when these 8-week old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppies had tired of playing and were just about asleep, I arranged them as you see here. I moved them together, put the ear of one pup over the other, and set them on a piece of black velvet. For the lighting, I used a White Lightning flash unit from Paul C. Buff, Inc. which was diffused with a small soft box, and I chose f/16 so every hair was tack sharp. In a picture like this, the last thing you'd want is shallow depth of field. I used a 24-105mm lens. The shutter speed was simply the sync speed, 1/250, and the ISO was 100.