The tenth challenge in the Embark Pet Photography Challenge Series was “Glow Up”.

The goal: Capture a backlit subject, with full rim light visible around the edges of the subject. Sounds simple, right? Well… not exactly. Here's the final image I created for this challenge:

This was definitely a challenging challenge (haha) because it completely depended on the weather, and we all know how unpredictable that can be. You need the sun low enough, but not too low, with something behind the subject to filter the light. Otherwise, you end up with blown-out highlights. And if the sun is behind clouds, you get more of a soft, diffused look instead of rim light shaping your subject.

Every day, I checked the weather. Some days looked promising, but the moment I’d get ready to take my husky outside, the clouds would roll in and say, “just kidding.” Other days were nothing but rain.

At one point, I even left a social event early, thinking I finally had a chance at catching the perfect light. The sun was shining the whole drive home, but the second I pulled into my driveway the clouds rolled in. The sky was still beautiful, but it wouldn't have given me the dramatic glow I needed for this challenge.

As the deadline crept closer, I gave up on waiting for the perfect weather and decided to think outside the box. Instead of chasing the sun, I’d try to create the “Glow Up” look in my studio.

Since space was tight, I grabbed my 24–70mm lens and set up my lights. But my husky? He had other plans. Whether he was tired of modeling or just being his stubborn self, he refused to cooperate. Every time I placed him exactly where I needed him, he’d wait until I sat on the floor with my camera, then walk straight toward me. If he didn’t do that, he’d readjust his position, look away from the light, or get too close so his fur completely blew out.

And of course, he sang the song of his people for good measure. 😂

As if that wasn’t enough, my lab decided to plop herself right in the middle of the setup, blocking the scene. Eventually, we were all frustrated, and I realized I couldn’t pull this off alone. I needed backup.

Here are some of the behind-the-scenes misadventures that went down during this shoot:

A few days later, I made sure to set up everything before bringing my husky into the studio. It’s always best to dial in your camera and lighting settings before your model arrives. Dogs have short attention spans, and they can get bored fast. Once everything is ready, you can bring your dog in and fine-tune the lighting before starting to pose him.

When shooting outside with off-camera flash, the process is similar. First, leave your flash off and expose your camera for the background. Then turn on your light and adjust it to balance with the natural light. Once that’s set, bring your model in and make the final tweaks to the flash settings before putting him to work.

Once all the settings were dialed in, it was game time! My husky was as ready as a husky ever would be, and I could finally start shooting.

Getting the front light right was easy. The backlight, however, was trickier than I expected. I kept adjusting the height, but I couldn’t get the rim glow I was looking for.

Turns out, the problem wasn’t my light, it was my husky (no surprise), who decided to lay down after I had set the backlight for him standing up. 🤦‍♀️

That’s when my husband came up with a brilliant solution: he held the light closer to the ground and adjusted it as needed. And just like that, it worked! Finally, I captured the glowing rim light I’d been chasing, and I ended up with the image you see at the top of this blog.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes peek at his photoshoot:

The judges said it’s a lovely image that has been beautifully lit. They liked the balance of the two different light sources, but felt the image didn’t quite meet the brief. The challenge called for natural light on the camera-facing side of the dog, with rim light wrapping all the way around to show it was lit from behind, not just from one side.

I couldn’t believe I completely missed the brief on this one. I watched the instruction videos and the photo demonstrations, but somehow all I took away was “rim light” and “you can shoot anywhere, anytime with flash.” I latched onto those two points and ran with them, without giving much thought to the rest of the instructions. I was definitely kicking myself on this one. It really showed me that I need to slow down and make sure I’m paying attention to all the details. And the funny thing is, I usually am very detail-oriented, so I honestly don’t know how I let this slip by me.

After the judges pointed out where I went wrong, I decided to do a reshoot and submitted this new image for the final portfolio review:

Of course, that didn’t go off without its own set of challenges. A friend was kind enough to help by holding the strobe and positioning it over my husky, but the minute we got set up, my strobe refused to sync with the trigger. I double-checked the settings, and everything looked right, but it just wouldn’t work. This is the same strobe I had to buy a new battery for after it died during my first studio attempt at this challenge. Between husky antics, unpredictable weather, and technical issues, it felt like everything was working against me. Troubleshooting the strobe is going to have to wait for another day. I ended up using my off-camera flash to enhance the natural light that was already wrapping around my husky.

And because no husky story is complete without some theatrics, here are a few behind-the-scenes shots of my boy yelling and howling his way through this process. He definitely had a lot to say about this challenge.

Now it’s on to Challenge 11—and you better believe I’ll be reading (and rereading) every single instruction this time. 😉