Laura Merikay Photography » Laura Merikay Photography

I recently posted photographs of chicks and mentioned how difficult they were to work with… I take it back. Piglets top the cake. They fuss, squeal, kick, run, fall over, and yeah. I LOVE pigs to death but if you attempt to turn one to the right, it goes left. And if you attempt to coax one forward it steps backward. Pigs do the opposite of what you force them to do, that’s how they are no matter their size. As you can imagine, working with a creature that takes no direction and does the opposite of what you try to get it to do, can be quite difficult. I took 150 shots and got about 3 I’m in love with. Brittaney, my little sis, and I braved the storming weather and made this shoot happen regardless! It was the first time I got to try out my vagabond mini… well kinda. Now I said I ‘kinda’ got to test my vagabond mini…. the shed we shot in was so dark I resorted to turning the modeling lamps on on my strobe so I could focus on the piglet… well of course, the vagabond mini died on me after about 180 flashes- BUT I had the modeling lamp on so I can’t blame the mini. I’m sure it’ll hold up much better on a shoot where the modeling lamps remain off.

The little set up you see I constructed by dragging the rusted iron piece in to add depth to the image. Same thing with the hay in the foreground, added depth. I sprinkled hay on the ground and then added my zebra box I got for $5 at hobby lobby. We shot inside a shed to keep my equipment dry as it poured rain around us. I had a B800 with a softbox to the left of the piglet and a B400 with a grid to the left. Brittaney prevented the piglet from falling from behind the setup and I think that resulted in blocking my B400 from the right, but whatever, I still enjoy the light. It was the piglet’s posing I was concerned with most.

I think it took us a good 45 minutes of ‘coaxing’ the runt to stay where we desired until I got my shots. Once or twice she fell off the decorate box and into the hay but no worries she was fine and simply fussed at us that she couldn’t run away from us crazy people. After much struggle getting the piglet to stay on top of the box Britt, Vanessa, and I had a strike of brilliance! Why not put the wee pig in the box? DUH. All in all I’m ecstatic with my images and could not have done it without my pig wrangling assistants. Runt’s favorite part of the shoot was when she got model breaks wrapped up in a nice warm towel, she fell asleep each time. Enjoy this cute little creature!