I will never forget this yard. This is the yard that broke the CAMEL'S back, this was the final straw. It was while shooting this patio that I finally decided I would take a class and learn PHOTOSHOP.

Getting a house and yard camera-ready can take hours or sometimes even days, depending on the project. I had been working on getting this particular yard ready to photograph all morning— cleaning, moving furniture, dead-heading blooms, sweeping up stray leaves, etc.— but I hadn’t actually shot a single frame yet. I was getting close, though. My camera was set up, and all my lights were built and ready. I was setting exposure when the lady of the house announced she needed to let the dog out real quick. I said no problem, assuming it would go somewhere in the enormous field behind me. These people had lakefront property with acres and acres of empty grass behind their house, leading all the way to the water.

But out through the patio door comes this massive French bulldog, that barely walked four feet out of the house before it stopped and took a massive shit right in the middle of the patio, right in the middle of my frame. I’ll just be blunt, the dog had DIARRHEA. There would be no picking this up, hell, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to CLEAN this up.

“Oh Winston, you devil!” I heard the lady yell, and she went back inside, presumably to get some sort of cleaning supplies (one would think), but nope, she never returned.

And if you’re feeling concerned or sorry for the dog, stop. Because after crapping all over my photo, Winston then went and playfully frolicked in the huge field behind me like a hoppity little bunny for the next hour, while I tried to figure out how to clean up his shit and salvage this shoot.

I am not big on photo manipulation, or employing deceptive photo techniques, but when I hear a photography purist just summarily or all-inclusively rebuke all things Photoshop, I can only assume it’s because they’ve never had to regularly pick up dog shit before each shoot. (And often of dogs you’ve never even met before, I might add!)

Or move the trash and recycle bins of an entire cul-de-sac, just to get them all out of your shot. Where do you hide 10 trash receptacles? Tell me that!

Or clean up a dead bird that someone’s cat apparently barfed up the night before onto the porch mat.

Or…

The list goes on and on.

So a good many years ago, I made up my mind to learn Photoshop, and I haven’t looked back since. Of course, I still do everything possible to address most issues in-camera, before resorting to a digital solution, but to quote Danny Glover’s character in Lethal Weapon—

I’m getting too old for this shit.

And in my case, sometimes, literally.

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