The one the customer liked. How I got here explained below.
Working with animals is frustrating and time consuming, but well worth the effort if you want to make extra money from your photography.
I was going to take pictures for a local animal rescue group and not only helped place some animals in need of a home, but I picked up several referrals from people who wanted professional pet photos.
If you notice, there is a photographer with a portable setup in many major pet stores. This is not an accident. While you may not get as much money for a sitting and it sometimes can take longer to get the shot, people will spend money on their animals, even when times are tight.
When we lived in Kentucky, several local photographers worked exclusively with horses, where sales and breeding are big business.
So getting good at animal portraits is not only good practice, it’s good business. Although it may come as a blow to your ego that you are marginally less interesting than a squirrel.
A few things to keep in mind with pets. With horses and dogs, you’ll want to aim for an aperture of f/11 for head shots. Otherwise you risk having a long nose in focus with the rest of the animal out of focus.
Speaking of focus, this is one time you may want to consider manual focus, or make sure your AF is keying on the eyes and not that big old nose sticking out there. AF confusion about the point of interest will spoil a surprising number of shots, so before your subject gets away, make sure you either check those photos on a monitor or zoom them in camera to check focus.
Buddy kept turning his head every time a squirrel ran between trees, throwing his face into shadows
For dogs, another thing to avoid is playing with them too much. It won’t make a great pet portrait to have a big tongue hanging down because they’re hot. They’re going to be amped up enough because something different is happening and someone new is around.
Be careful using food or treats as the animal will frequently forget about everything else and try to stay near the food regardless of where your lights are set up.
Curse you auto focus! Locking on the nose instead of the eyes.
I try to avoid using plug-in studio lights for animals, because they move around so much. If there are distractions, the best plan is to move your lights around so you’re positioned between the animal and whatever they’re interested in. The most portable setup for moving fast is to use your speedlites on wireless controllers set in either an umbrella or softbox.
That really is the secret to getting great animal portraits: Be flexible with your shooting setup. Avoid using wires, make your gear as portable as possible so you can light what the animal wants to do instead of trying to force the situation.
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