The Adventure of Pet Photography

The Adventure of Pet Photography

With many of us turning more to consumer technology to capture our beloved pets I thought I would share my thoughts on how to get pets to play ball.

A little bit about my experience and me:

I started a good 4 years ago doing odd job photo portraits of people pets as a way to earn some pocket money as a teen. I have since started collecting pets myself ( the boyfriend keeps bringing more home).

So I have a Continental Giant rabbit nick name "Flumpy", by the parrot "Charlie" that the boyfriend inherited from his Grandad, which then my boyfriend decided some fish where needed and then to finish it off he decided a Shih Tzu Puppy was an ideal 21st birthday present for me. If he reads this blog " NO MORE TILL WE HAVE A BIGGER HOUSE"





So my first trick with pets is to let them relax as this is when you get the best photographs, this one was when i was watching telly and Nev the Shih Tzu had fell asleep in front of me, so used my galaxy s6 to capture him.




My next trick is put them in a environment where the lighting works for you. I was lucky with this capture as my dog is light coloured. However I have previously photographed darker coloured animals and often having a photograph taken outside with natural light rather than inside with a flash can show the softer loving side as they dont feel so on edge with the noise and light.




Build a relationship with the pet first. So this photograph was not staged, this was one summer afternoon I had my nikon D2X out in the garden taking pictures of the rabbit and the dog, and my boyfriend has taught them both the sit for treats ( in this case rich tea biscuits). The dog has been brought up to run round with the rabbit since he was 11 weeks old, pretty sure the dog thinks he is a rabbit sometimes.




This is my final example, so not everyone's pets are fluffy cats and dogs, this is Charlie the parrot and he is not the tamest as we in inherited him. But using patience and communication to him, he likes to make blowing kisses noises, I was able to catch him in action.


I think with the more access people have now to capture images, I do think that we will see more pet portraits taken on smart phones ect.
However I do still tend to get printed versions of my photographs, whether that is my film photography side coming out and my love of having a actual print.