Pet Photography Help
Pet photography is a favourite hobby of many pet owners. Their photo collections number hundreds or even thousands of photographs of their dear puppies and kitties, but most of them have no artistic merit. Nobody takes any interest in such photos.
BUT if you only some make preparations and think about some creative ideas, you can easily get a number of impressive images that will be interesting to a wide range of viewers.
The aim of any portrait is to reveal the personality, the character of the model and no matter whether it is a human being or an animal. It is also up to you where to shoot your pet in a professional photo studio, at home or outside. On the one hand, most pets are likely to behave in natural way in their natural surrounding. On the other hand, a professional studio portrait is always better from the technical point of view.
But it doesn’t mean that you can’t take high quality images at home or outside. Here are some technical tips:
1. Background
If you want to take a studio portrait of your pet, you will have to find a nice background. You can do it yourself using curtains, or canvas or anything, but you can also buy a professional background, as Lastolite with a flexible frame. The latter is very convenient, because you can roll it up and put in your bag. The size of a background depends on the subject you are going to shoot. If it is a big dog, you’ll need a background of 2 meters high.
One more solution is to photograph your pet in its own place, or in its favorite armchair. In this case try not to include too many details.
It is also a good idea to take a portrait of your pet or some wild animals outside. Then you need no background at all. The best way to keep your subject still for a few seconds is to leave some feed for it and be ready with your camera at any second.
2. Lighting
For studio animal portraits two studio flashes are enough. Place them at an angle of 45 degrees to the camera and use umbrellas as well. If your subject is small, one flash will be enough.
It is good to use a flash in animal photography, because flash light makes subject’s eyes twinkle. But remember about a green-eyes effect, which can appear, especially if you use a direct flash. To avoid this effect, use a wall or a ceiling of a neutral tone to reflect light, or use a silver umbrella.
If you use a flash, you should know that the best photo is always the first one. The flash light makes the animal uneasy, it gets alarmed, pricks up its ears and tries to understand what is happening.
If you shoot outside and use natural light, it is better not to photograph in the afternoon – lighting is too harsh at this time and it causes high contrast. You risk underexposing dark areas of the shot or overexposing light parts of the shot. In this case you can use a white sheet of paper as a reflector, or take advantage of a portable flat to illuminate shadows and even contrast.
Further reading: 7 Tips to Win Pet Photo Contest
Digital Wildlife and Animal Photography Help and Tips
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