My Dog is Hard to Photograph
Do you think your dog is hard to photograph? Do you have a hard time getting decent photos of your own dog?
I’ll let you in on a secret: Photographing dogs is hard!
Keep reading and I’ll tell you why I am able to photograph dogs and get decent photos of them and I’ll share a few tips that will help you take better photos of your own dogs.
5 Reasons Why I Can Get Decent Photos of Your Dog:
I started a dog walking business in 2009. I’ve been around a lot of different dogs with a lot of different behavior traits. I can quickly assess a dog’s personality within minutes of meeting him, which helps me understand how I can take the best photos of your dog. Not all dogs are the same and knowing the difference matters.
I have studied photography. For YEARS. Having a nice camera and nice lenses helps but I have to know how to use them. I have to understand light. Should I take photos in bright sunlight? In darker shade? Indoors or outdoors? I also know how to use editing software. EVERY professional photographer I know uses editing software light Lightroom and Photoshop. When I first got into photography, I thought using these tools was cheating. LOL
I know where to position your dog and where to position myself so your dog will look his best.
I know how to use the surroundings we are in and I know which one of my lenses will work best in that environment. If you look at the images I create, the background is usually very blurry. That is a creative choice and it’s the look I prefer. I want your dog to stand out in the photos. Not the background.
I can use editing software like Photoshop to edit the leashes out of my photos. If you think your dog can’t be photographed because he needs to be on leash, most of the dogs I photograph are and I edit the leash out.
Here’s a before and after example of a leash removal.
This is an unedited photo or what we photographers call SOOC: straight out of camera. Most photographers never show these photos.
Fully edited photo with the leash removed and other distracting elements removed from the photo.
In the photo above, the most obvious edit is the leash removal. If you look more closely, I also removed the yellow tag hanging down, I’ve cropped the photo so the dog is bigger in the frame, I removed some small bugs that were flying around and I cleaned up some dirt on the dog.
If you look really closely at photos, you might also notice a “color cast.” Black often has a blue tint to it. Or sometimes it can look pink. Around here because of all of the green grass and trees, white dogs can often look green or yellow.
Knowing how to remove these color casts so that whites look white is important and sometimes really hard. I had to learn to see color casts. Some of you may see the difference in the two photos above and some of you may not but the first photo definitely has a couple of different color casts in it that I corrected when I edited it.
This is one area where photography gets really complicated. I have to calibrate my computer monitor so that I know the colors it’s showing me are accurate.
Look at your computer monitor. Do the whites look white?? Don’t even get me started on one of our tvs. It has a yellow tint to it and it drives me crazy.
So how can you take better photos of your own dogs if you don’t have a vast knowledge of photography?
Here are 3 tips to help you photograph your own dog:
Get low. I mean on your stomach low. Photographing dogs from this angle is usually the best (but of course there are exceptions!) In the photo above, I was on my stomach.
Taking photos on cloudy days is the easiest. The light will be even. Taking photos in bright sun is the hardest because harsh shadow lines generally don’t look good in photos. (Again, there are exceptions.)
Have your camera ready and make a weird noise with your mouth. Your dog will most likely look directly at you. You have to be ready though! You may only have a split second to get the shot before he’s walking over to you. And this trick usually only works once or twice before he figures you out.
If you’re still with me after reading this, you are appreciated. I hope my tips will help you if your dog is hard to photograph.
If you’d like to learn more about my photo sessions, please check out the website. You can fill out the Contact Form and I’ll email you a welcome packet.
Most of my clients spend $500+ on their BARKography session but there isn’t a minimum spend and never any pressure to make a purchase. You will have photos you’ll treasure forever and we’ll have fun in the process.
If you’re thinking about it, sign up now. You just never know how long your pup will be with you. Unfortunately, I hear more frequently that I want from clients that they wish they would’ve hired me when their dog was younger and healthy.
Want to check out some of my recent work: Follow @barkography on Instagram.