MEMO DOG BLOG: interview with a photographer: Patrick Selder

Patrick Selder comes from the Netherlands.For many years active in discdog and
from 2008 he began photographing the discdog competitions, developed this passion and the result is DIGIVARIA amazing pictures, spectacular job which is in constantly growing.
read the interview :)

Patrick and the warm up questions...

favorite movie?
Ehhh didn't see any movies lately due to lack of time. One movie of the Star Wars series is always ok for me.

What sound or noise do you love?
The wind blowing softly with a stream cobbling nearby.

Ok ,let's move to the interview...
Could you tell our readers a little about yourself
I'm Patrick Selder and live in the Netherlands. The south part. I compete a lot with dogfrisbee and bring my camera with me of course. So traveling is part the game. You visit so much places it's always interesting to find new things to capture.

When did you start getting interested in photography?
Tell me a little bit about your start in dog sports photography
Since I have a phone with a camera I'm taking pictures of various situation. A kind of photoblog. No where published, but only on the phone. Since I practice dogfrisbee the videocamera was allways traveling with me. At competitions some people also had a DSLR and took pictures. I started to like pictures more then filming.
Beginning 2008 I bought my own DSLR to do just what the others did. Take pictures from dogfrisbee competitions. Since then the DSLR was the standard equipment and the videocamera stayed at home.

you focused on discdog, explain why this choice ?
Dogfrisbee is what I do practice myself and so it the most obvious choice for taking pictures while I'm at it.

I'm not going to other dog sport events to take pictures. For that I have way to less time on my hands.

What kind of equipment do you use?
I use a Canon 40D. First I bought a Sigma 18-200mm DC OS lens but after a few test it turned out the pictures were not sharp at all and therefore was not usable for me.
Right after I swapped it for a Canon 55-250mm IS I had my first dogfrisbee competition I photographed at. Wow what a difference this lens made.

The lack of a wide angle lens came apperent and after a few months the kit lens 18-55mm II IS was added. It is good value for money but in the future a 17-55mm F2.8 IS is on the list to add more quality.
A few months back I decided to put the 55-250mm IS out of business and purchased the Canon 70-200mm L IS USM F2.8 II.
This lens is now attached at every competition I go to and makes even more beautifull pictures. Even in low light.

Which one item of equipment would you say is the most important to you?
At the moment the 70-200mm lens. Every time it keeps astonishing me how fast and aqurate it is. At every setting it is tack sharp no matter what apperture. Especially F2.8 at 200mm is used often because of the distance to the players on the field.

In general, during a session, how many pics would you say you take to find "the right one"?
I find that about 1 of 6 pictures to make it through my selection.
If you go the the European Championship a few weeks back where I took 4544 pictures I had 738 passing the quality/composition specs I go by.

How do you know that a photo is really good?
Good composition, subject sharp and a nice bokeh (blurry background)

Who are your influences?
Actually I have no photographer who's style I admire.
For me it is to try things out myself and create my own style.
Actually a dog pro-photographer in Holland complemented me on a gallery I put online saying „One2watch“.

What do you love most about today’s technology? How have or haven’t you taken advantage of it?
The speed you can do things with and the ease of information at your fingertips. In my case often on my mobile phone to surf the internet to gather information etc.

How much time do you spend editing photos to make them production ready? What types of photo editing do you do? What software do you use?
I try to delete the out of focus shots after a player finishes his or her round. Then all images go on the imagetank.
I import the raw photos into Adobe Lightroom and there I go one-by-one to let it pass or not. If it passes I immediately make adjustment if necessary.

Most of the adjustmens are compensating the exposure and cropping.

What do you think about the fact that almost everyone edit the photos with photoshop ?
In your work you call it an advantage or a disadvantage?
Photoshop is nice to do detailed editing. I do that sometimes if lightroom is not sufficient. Photoshop has no catalog functionality like Lightroom and that is why I don't use it that often.
Lightroom can do a lot of things you need. It's a very good product.

Tell us one of the most beautiful things that happened during a photo session .
I know a dog that had a spine injury. With a lot of rest it could grow back together again. After a few months the x-ray pictures revealed the spine fully healed and there was no reason not to play frisbee again. Then the moments you capture during the shoot with the dog playing as never before is just awesome!

What is it you like the most about being a photographer?
The freedom you have in what you can capture and put your own twist on it.
The saying that „every picture already has been taken“ might be true but I can say then „But not by me“.

Any plans for the future?
Continue to make pictures of course and slowly look where this hobby is taking me.
No real plans on becomming a full-time photographer though.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview! Do you have anything else you would like to add?
I'd like to say to all people who like photo's not to „steal or copy“ them but ask the photographer instead. Photographers put alot of money in their equipment to make the most beautifull pictures. Then they proccess the pictures and often put them online for people to view.
Purchasing the photo's makes it up a little for all this.