A few weeks back I had the pleasure of working with Bideawee, Alan Colmes, and Monica Crowley on a really fun shoot in Bideawee's offices in Manhattan. The reason we all came together was to create some images to supplement Alan and Monica's First Great Pet Debate on Bideawee's website, where "...Two of TV and radio's most outspoken political pundits, from opposite sides of the political spectrum but the same side of the family tree (Alan is married to Monica's sister), bring you the "scoop" on the candidates, the controversy, and the dog and cat fights in this historical First Pet Race of 2008."

It's a fun idea, and the launch of the website seems to be going really well.

Monica and Alan were wonderful to work with, and we enjoyed a lot of laughs with good spirits as they posed for the 'argumentative' shots to portray their opposing cat & dog views. We posed them with some of Bideawees temporary residents as well, of course, with furry friends coming out on set too for some camera time.

This was the second shoot in which I employed Nikon's new D300 digital SLR body, and I have to say I'm thrilled with the results. Nikon's new CMOS sensor captures skin tones very well, especially with the availability of a D2X (their former flagship camera) algorithm for nice color gradients. Add to that some large, soft light sources and some pleasant subjects, and we're off and running with a great new camera set in the arsenal.

Thanks to Monica and Alan for volunteering their time, and to all the hospitality and fun from the fine folks at Bideawee.