I posted the dog and the moon photo on Facebook last week and the place went crazy! I just wanted to show you that one and tell you how I created it.

There are two ways to look at the Storytelling Sessions. One, we create a set and props to make it look like your dog is in a story. Or we place an image of your dog on a background and the result tells a story. As you saw with Luna in a Moroccan setting.

Both have to be photographed well, don't get me wrong, but creating the second one means lighting it in such a way we can remove it from a backdrop, then place it in the setting.

The dog in the blue portrait is Olive and she was photographed against a plain backdrop. As a terrier, she looks werewolfy so while I wasn't going for an overt Halloween theme with bats and witches flying about, I wanted to make it ominous and spooky. From my stock supplier, I searched for a full moon and forest image and this one, exactly as it is, popped up. So then it was a matter of putting Olive on that particular photo and trying to make her a believable part of the setting.

That meant turning her blue, which how lucky for me I created the exact shade of blue as the setting, but it also meant her eyes turned blue. So I masked those out to restore her true color, then added the slightest bit of yellow to her irises.

When I placed her on the image, she was flat and standing out from the backdrop. To remedy that, I changed the exposure on her to darken that image to give it the same values as the forest. And I wanted to make it slightly difficult to see her, as if you would be walking in the woods and suddenly run across this otherworldly creature from within the shadows. Then I painted in a kiss of light on her camera left side as if they moon beams were illuminating her and darkened the right side so that it fell into shadow. The difference was astounding. It rounded her out and gave her dimension, as if she was organically part of the photograph.

And that is the Blue Dog in the Forest, another in my Storytelling Sessions.

What story can your pet tell? Call me, 818-481.5214. I'm Diana Lundin, I'm a Los Angeles pet photographer, and I want to create a storytelling image for you.