Katie

Katie's mom called - she loved the picture except for the blue tag hanging out of her mouth!  I really had to laugh at myself as I am so used to Murphy's blue tag that it totally escaped me.  so I removed the tag!  here's the pic without the tag.

Not sure I spelled Katie correctly, but anyway!!!  Dogs R Us is Murphy's doggie day care.  I've taken pictures on Halloween of dogs down there and they refer me to people who want pictures of their dogs!  Long story as to how I got this picture of Katie, a Great Dane.  She is a very gentle soul, and had just had her nails clipped when I arrived at DRU to take some shots.  She was skittish, and walked around almost constantly.

Finally, it was just she and I in the open area out back.  She leaned against me and we communed for several moments, just getting related.  Then she walked around the open area and stopped for a couple of minutes when I got this one and several others.

The background is the gray concrete and it had a lot of marks in it, including one just beneath her that looked like she had just peed!  I used a Photoshop swirl to stir up the background and then an Aperture 3 blur brush to reduce the distinctness of the swirls.  Had to do quite a bit of cloning for the small areas that came out like black specks due to the combination above, then a slight white vignette.

Now to see if her Mom likes it!!