Meet Tess, the new member of our family & latest photographic model.

Tess is our Border Collie pup. We got her from Heathlands Animal Sanctuary near Royston. They specialise in rescuing border collies from Ireland. We got her when she was 9 weeks old. She’s now 16 weeks.

As you can see from these shots, Tess presents a bit of a problem exposure-wise. With half her face in white & half in black it’s quite difficult to get a reasonable exposure which shows detail in both blacks & whites. This type of subject is often a photographer’s nightmare; if you expose for the blacks the whites are blown out & if you expose for the whites the detail is lost in the blacks. Add to this taking a picture of a mainly black dog in the snow we had a few weeks back & it’s enough to test any photographer.

We’re all enjoying the challenges & joys of owning a dog made better by the fact that Tess is so good; we’ve had very few accidents in the house, have not lost any furniture, shoes or other odds & ends to chewing & she is so obedient.

They say border collies are intelligent dogs & Tess is a fine example of that.

Sadly, due to a teenager-related incident, Tess currently has two broken bones in her front left foot & is now strapped up for a month. The day after she came back from the vets she learned how to walk on three legs holding her poorly leg in the air. The day after that she learned how to run on three legs.

I expect there will be quite a few shots of Tess over the next few years.