Sisters Pet Pics’ Blog

Ava & Francis (Click to enlarge)

This is Ava & Francis.  Of course they are related.  These two little folks came into our home just over two years ago, about 4 weeks before this photo was taken.  Good Dog Naturally, the pet supply store where Sisters Pet Pics currently has our studio, was having another adoption day where the local pet rescue groups bring their in-need-of-forever-homes folks to be seen by the public.  Terry and I were shooting that day and passed by a crate filled with a bucket of kittens (I’ve got to stop doing that!).  Now, I’m fairly hard-hearted about kittens and puppies.  Those are the folks that have a chance to get adopted because they’re…cute.  Terry and I always think we are supposed to adopt those who have a little age on them, or are sick, or are in some way compromised.  So initially I had no problem walking by.  But…what’s that?  The female is deaf?  Oh no, I say.

So that’s how Ava got in.  We got her home and realized quickly that, hey, she’s not deaf!  Uh oh.  That must mean someone got mixed up and it was the male who was deaf. We made some phone calls and before the day was out Francis was at his forever home too…with us.  Now this might be a good time to tell you about my theory about domestic animal opportunism.   This is not the first time we found what we thought was a health compromised animal in the street only to take them home, get them vet checked to find there was nothing wrong.  Too late.  They’re in.  I meet ‘em, I love ‘em.

We brought Ava & Francis to the studio to get some journalistic style photos of them playing wildly in the lights…which they did.  After they exhausted themselves over the course of a couple of hours they would rest on the table and that’s when this capture was made.  It only required a string and feather-on-a-stick toy to get them back up on the table.  Which brings me to ‘Eye Contact’.  You may think eye contact means staring right into the camera.  It doesn’t.  It may mean a good look at only one eye, or in this case a remarkable look at 4 eyes all looking somewhere else…but the same somewhere else.

Terry and I have been shooting ours and others’ pets for over 30 years.  We have developed some methods which we think result in some pretty good images.  I will share our tips with you here.  But to understand our methods you have to understand the elements.  You can begin here:  Better Pet Photography can be achieved by improving four elements.

1. You’ve got to begin by improving your photographic skills.  That’s a no-brainer.  Familiarize yourself with what Bryan Peterson calls “The Photographic Triangle” in his book Understanding Exposure, aperture, shutter speed and ISO.  You must study their relationships, which will allow you to achieve correct and artistic exposures.  I will refer to Mr. Peterson’s book many times and will add information you can use immediately to the Skills page.
2. Good planning. If you don’t plan your shots you may stumble upon a really great capture…then you can sell your camera and retire.  But where’s the fun in that?  If you don’t plan what you’d like to achieve in the shot it’ll be an accident if you get it.  Why not learn the variables and improve?
3. Getting an assistant and working well with her/him is imperative.  You must play well with others.  Work well with all animals and people in the vicinity.  Develop a rapport with either the owner of the animal or your friend or family member in order to direct that special shot.  I often feel as though I’m directing a very short movie.  If there’s a hand hovering inches out of the shot, it does not exist at all if it is out of the frame…it just does not exist.
4. Patience, patience, patience. Period.  It’s more important in animal photography than photographing any other subjects.  Even children.

I will refer to these elements every day.  It is my not-so-humble opinion that your entire life will improve if you become a better pet photographer by improving these elements.  I challenge you to improve these elements and come back here and let us know if your entire life did not improve.  Take the challenge, people!  You can do it.