The cutest of the cute

This past weekend I gave a presentation to the Gold Rush Camera Club in Sacramento. Following that, my friend and client, Bobbie Hefner, invited me to see and photograph her beautiful Bernese mountain dog puppies in Grass Valley, California, not far from where I gave the presentation. I'm dying to have one of these incredible dogs, but my wife already struggles to keep our home meticulously clean with two dogs and three rabbits. So far, she is unrelenting about allowing me to have another dog. Actually, I'd love a lot more dogs, but then I wouldn't be married anymore . . . To photograph a group of six-week-old puppies is not easy. Bobbie and two of her friends helped position, re-position, and then re-position again the pups until I was able to get this shot. We used a simple fabric backdrop that I darkened in Photoshop, and I used a 24-105mm lens for this portrait. I took this outside on a front porch, but the weather was gloomy and very dark. Thus, I had to use 3200 ISO with a shutter of 1/125 and an aperture of f/8. I also used a daylight-balanced artificial light in front of the puppies.