I went to Pride Park Derby on Saturday, to watch Bolton Wanderers play Derby County
I took my old Canon 450D , hoping to find a stranger for my project and also get some football related shots.
I got a group shot of some of the Showsec security people (see previous shot) and as I was approaching the away turnstiles noticed a beautiful sniffer dog.
My mate Bill said "they will make good strangers Phil , off you go and get them". So off I went and got them !
Meet Derren and Max. At first I thought that Derren was a police officer, but she works for an external security company know as icdsevents.
Derren and Max have been together for three years. I asked what Max sniffs for and Derren told me it was Alcohol, Drugs and Pyrotechnics. The Pyrotechnics bit being "flares" which seem to be appearing quite a lot on the terraces these days, as opposed to the "flares" that we wore when I was a youth watching football !!
I tend to shoot on ISO 400 when I am doing street photography, but I did't take into account that it was quite a bright day and the stadium architecture is quite bright too, so my photo had quite a bit of blown out highlights. However as you can see, my Rawtherapee editor has recovered them from the RAW file.
It was quite a quick photoshoot as Max was on duty and busy sniffing !
I have the email contact details for Derren, so I will be sending this lovely image to her.
Oh and the football, the Wanderers lost 3 nil, we played dreadful and relegation is a distinct possibility as we reach the last few games of the season
To find out more and see pictures taken by other photographers, look at the 100 Strangers Flickr Group page
https://www.flickr.com/groups/100strangers/
My own strangers can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/57144254@N08/albums/72157657822400168
@quietpurplehaze thanks haze, Max is lovely :)
@ellida thanks for your lovely comment Graham
@sangwann the dog was ultra alert dione :)
@granagringa good spot re the word power :)
@happypat thank you for your really nice words Pat :)