Tag Archives: Professional Pet Photography Tips

Pro Tips – Getting Their Attention

Welcome to Pro Tips – a feature where I answer a reader question about pet photography (and photography in general). If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, click here to email me.

Jackie sent me this question and I think it’s one that a lot of people starting out in pet photography struggle with -how do I get their attention when photographing them?

These are my two best tips for getting their attention

1.) Find their trigger

What makes them tick?Are they food obsessed? Toy obsessed? Noise obsessed? Once I find this out, I like to try the following methods –

  • Food obsessed – using the treats as a reward, I’ll get them to sit, drop, or lie down. You will need to learn how to do this one handed, because you’ll need the other to hold your camera! Having the owner help with this makes your job a lot easier. Make sure only one of you is giving commands at a time, because otherwise they will end up confused and peeing on you (this actually happened to me)
  • Toy obsessed – I like to turn this into a fun playtime, and snap away while they are playing. This is particularly effective with cats – again you’ll probably end up doing this one handed! My secret weapon for cat photography is a feather on the end of a bendy stick – I am yet to meet a single cat who doesn’t go absolutely crazy over these. For dogs, I’ll often play a game of fetch or tug of war and shoot while we are playing.
Dog-Photography-Ringwood-Melbourne

“PLEASE THROW THE BALL PLEASE THROW THE BALL”

Noise obsessed – This one is my favourite because I get to act like a total idiot. I have made chicken noises, squeaks, and whistles, I have sung in a high pitched voice (deadly to the human ear), and my personal favourite – meowing like a cat. I have also been known to say “poooooooooooork” “cheeeeeeeeeeeese” “waaaaaaaaalks” and “caaaaaaaaar”. The neighbours must think I’m insane. But you are guaranteed some great shots!

Dog-Photography-Tips-Melbourne

Ellie’s trigger word was “Poooooooooork”

2.) Let them get their manic energy out of the way first

All shoots follow the same formula – manic happiness and running around, a twenty minute window of good behaivour, then exhaustion. Let them have the manic running around time, the good shots always come after they’ve let off some steam. And keep the camera out as they fall asleep too – you get some great shots during this time.

Black-Cat-Melbourne-Pet-Photographer

That’s it for this week – tune in next week for another handy pet photography tip! And if you’d like to read more, you can do so in my ebook – Snap n Paws, Adorable Pet Photography in a Snap

Posted in Melbourne Pet Photographer Also tagged |

Pro Tips – Equipment

Welcome to Pro Tips – a feature where I answer a reader question about pet photography (and photography in general). If you’ve got a question you’d like answered, click here to email me.

Professional-Pet-Photography-Tips

The most frequently asked questions I get are about the equipment I use. Nikon or Canon, PC or Mac, etc etc. I always feel a bit funny telling people what I use, because I am a huge minimalist when it comes to most things, and photography equipment is no exception.

  • A Nikon SLR D700  + backup (my previous cameras were a D7000 and a D60.) I have also shot with Canon and I absolutely cannot tell the difference. There are entire websites dedicated to arguing the differences but my advie is to pick one that’s light, easy to handle, and that feels right to YOU. Don’t get caught up in the megapixels, nobody cares.
  • A 50mm f1.4 lens and a 28mm f2.8. The 50mm lens is on my camera 99.9% of my time. This lens is super sharp, fast to focus, light to carry,and best of all it’s small – pets don’t feel intimidated by it.
  • My HP laptop. It’s almost sacrilegious as a photographer to not work on a Mac, but I’ve never seen what the fuss is about, and I’d prefer to take the money I saved on sticking with a PC and spending it on important things like cat bow ties and trips to IKEA. Desktop computers make me sad, I like to be able to work on the couch, in a cafe, or by the beach if I can – for tricky editing I have an external monitor. Getting a laptop with a built in SD card reader is amazing, no more cables to download your photos!
  • Sandisk 8GB memory cards. I’ve never had one fail me yet (runs around the house knocking on multiple pieces of wood)
  • Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. I cannot stress how amazing this is. For $30 a month you get access to all of Adobe’s Creative Suite. No more paying for upgrades, no more paying $3000 for software – LIFE CHANGING.
  • Seagate portable hard drives. I have backups of my backups, which are then again backed up online to DropboxDropbox is $11 a month for 1TB of space, it’s fantastic.

So there you have it! The best part of having minimal equipment is how easy it is to pack up your stuff and work from anywhere – all my gear fits into a small backpack and laptop case and can be carried onto a plane!

Thanks so much for reading – if you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

Posted in Melbourne Pet Photographer