Pet Photography Tips, Part I

I've taken a few dog photos here and there over the years.  Our dogs have been beautiful, goofy, active, and calm.  When capturing the photo of a dog, you try to catch the essence of the dog.

Get Down On Their Level

Everybody has this photo.  You're standing and the dog is on the ground.  Yeah, he's a cute dog, but I've seen this photo a thousand times.  It's a snapshot you could take with your iPhone.

Get down on his level!  Show me something I've never seen before.  Show me what it's like to be down with your dog.  I think this photo is much more interesting than the "standard" dog shot (and yes, you can do this with an iPhone too!).

Shutter Speed

Dogs do not take direction well.  Or at least my dogs don't!  I try to get a shutter speed of at least 1/200th to stop any errant motion that is going on.  By having a faster shutter speed, you get less of these...

and more of these.

In the next part of the series, I'll give you some more tips on pet photography.