For the dogs.

All he wanted to do was just relax in the yard, but then the puppy came along and just wouldn’t stop biting his face. His head is lifted in some of these because she can’t bite his face or ears if he does that. Unless she gets up and climbs on him. Then he tried moving to the other side of the yard, but she just followed him. I don’t want to call her a jerk, but she’s a jerk.

As always, be patient with pets, they don’t know what a camera is, and they just want you to be happy. For these photos I just let the chaos play out. The big guy decided to relax in the yard, and I knew the puppy would do what the puppy does best – play. These two actually play well together. The rest was just getting on the proper angle and since they were playing, they didn’t really care where I moved.

For lighting, this was 100% the sunlight. Sure, the shadow placement wasn’t the best but bad shadow placement is better then losing the action in this situation. There is no guarantee they’d keep playing if I got them to move and there is even less guarantee that they would stay in the area that would have been ideal. So, I just went with what they were offering, and it worked out well. Making these decisions and gambles are part of photography.

More Pet Tips

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. More pet photos. Let me get the standard tip out of the way first:

Be patient when photographing your pets. They don’t know what a camera is and they have no concept of what a picture is. Getting frustrated with them because they won’t frame into your picture correctly will just upset them and make them afraid whenever you get your camera out. Now these dogs in these pictures are starting to understand that my camera out means the treat train is arriving very soon. If you do pet photography correctly then the pets you photograph often will come to associate great things with your camera and start to pose every time.

With that out of the way, let’s get into trickier pets – pets with dark or black fur. Dark fur can pose numerous problems because it is easy to have your sensor over adjust and suddenly you got a silhouette of a dog. There are several ways you can address this issue, but you have to put a little more thought into things. Thankfully, every trick you learn to use when working with dark fur will help your photography out tremendously and will help you out in low light situations.

Anyway, the three easy approaches are this:

1) Consider your background – if you put a black dog in white snow, your scenario changes drastically. Granted you don’t always have snow, but you have greenery or other colors to play off of and help utilize the dog’s fur to make it the center of attention.

2) Use a flash to help give the dog some depth. Darker color absorbs light, which is why your camera sometimes goes overboard in trying to figure out how to deal with animals with dark fur. If you throw some light in up front that will help the sensor in your camera find that depth.

3) Processing tools. This is the easiest but does add an extra step in your workflow. You can use the shadows slider in most photo processing tools to help counter what your camera’s sensor is doing. Just be sure you are shooting in RAW format when you take the pictures. Processing tools love photos in RAW or your camera’s equivalent of RAW.

Anyway, all these were shot using light from a window. Processing tools were used to add depth to the cat and dog. Also, the cat isn’t in some sort of kitty lockup, that’s just a play area for kids so the dogs don’t mistake the toys for chew toys.

Utilizing Seats.

Another quick post as I am swamped with processing work, which is a good problem to have.

Seats! You’ve seen me use stools and chairs and, in these photos, we are using an antique bench that came from an old fancy cruise ship. The “what” your subjects sit on is not as important as how you utilize it. Obviously, you can go for the main use and shoot straight on to the seat, but don’t discount other approaches, especially if you can move and adjust the seat. For example, we put the bench at an angle and worked from there. In fact, I meant to turn the bench around, so the back was facing the camera and have my subject look back, but I got sidetracked on the dogs.

On that note, two of my repeat reminders:

1) Be patient with pets on your photo session set. They don’t know what you are doing. They have no concept of what a camera or a photo is. They just want you to be happy and getting angry at them will just make them upset and you can pretty much just end your photo session at that point.

2) When working with younger children you can save a lot of processing time and touch up work if you remember to wash their face, especially if they have eaten recently.

Anyway, this was a two strobe light setup. Each light had an octagon softbox. I originally thought about having a back light, but I liked the way the background looked without a back light.

Indoor Pet Photography Tips

I have a big weekend I’m prepping for so a kind of quick post this week.

A few more tips on photographing pets, but this time indoors.

First for indoors, when working indoors and just going with a camera remember that you have access to one of the brightest lights around – the sun. Use your windows to let a little light in. If you pay attention to how the sun shines through your windows you can time when to take the photo with the specific type of light you want. You may have to move stuff around, but that secret can stay between you and your pet, especially if the shot ends up looking great.

As for pets, again, when indoors, wait for nap time. A lot of energy outside is manageable. A lot of energy indoors is a challenge. However, if you take the photo when it’s nap time you get a much calmer subject to work with and that means you can get your camera closer without making your pet nervous. That also means they might look at your camera more.

And once again, and as always, be patient. Your pets just want you to be happy. They don’t know what a camera is, nor do they know what a photo is, but if you get frustrated with them during a photo session, I guarantee they will start to fear your camera. However, if you keep it upbeat and happy, even if they aren’t doing what you want them to do, they will stay upbeat and happy whenever you get that camera out and that’s most of the way to an amazing photo of your pet.

Dog Birthday Party

I took these photos back in July when I was still relatively early in my recovery from surgery, but it was the dog’s birthday and the photos needed to be made.

When working with dogs for a dog birthday party: you will need help. I had an assistant to help get looks and the toddler on set also unintentionally helped get attention. When working with dogs in this sort of scene try and treat it like a toddler session and just sort of let things happen. However, if the dogs know basic sit and stay commands you can throw in some anticipation shots. Finally, do not forget the treat eating shot. Some dogs eat the cake piece by piece while this birthday boy ate it all in one chunk (followed by confusion of an empty plate).

Two other things – make sure you make a dog friendly cake. No photo session is worth poisoning your dog over. Second, and as always, be nice to your dog and keep the photoshoot friendly and fun. Your dogs are doing their best to make you happy and they have no idea what you are trying to do so do not get frustrated with them.

#petphotography #dogbirthdayparty #annearundelphotographer #marylandphotographer