5 Top Tips for Capturing Your Pets Personality

Let’s face it! Pets qualify as family members in most (if not every) pet owning household so it’s easy to understand why pet photography is so popular among pet owners. Nevertheless, it’s extremely challenging trying to take great pictures of your pet. Unlike humans, pets have a hard time posing (because they don’t understand what posing is) which gets in the way of taking great pictures. It is, however, possible to take great pictures of your pet by following a number of tips. Below are 5 effective pet photography tips to use when your focus is capturing your pet’s personality in a photo.

1. Be patient

This is by far one of the most important pet photography tips to consider when you want to capture your pet’s personality perfectly. Unlike other types of photography, pet photography requires a lot of patience. Since pets have a hard time taking directions, you have to be patient to capture the perfect shot. Furthermore, pets don’t pose when they see cameras. Instead, they get overwhelmed by curiosity. You need to allow enough time for the curiosity and restlessness to wear out to capture your pet’s unique personality.

2. Include people

This is another great photography tip for capturing your pet’s personality in a photo. One of the best indicators of personality is how we interact with others. Capturing these same interactions with respect to pets will also bring out their personality. You can capture your pet playing with a family member in a typical scenario to capture their personality perfectly.

3. Give value to your pet’s character

The best way to capture your pet’s personality is to bring out those unique traits. You know your pet better than anyone else so this shouldn’t be a problem. If your pet is lazy, you can focus on capturing lazy gestures such as yawns. If your pet is playful, focus on capturing his favourite tricks.

4. Experiment

Also, don’t be afraid to experiment. Although there are guidelines for taking great pet photos, the rules can be bent. Try different angles, approaches and compositions until you get the perfect shot. You should shoot as many times as you can and worry about the results later. Although pet photography is best captured when you get to your pet’s eye level i.e. when sitting or lying on the floor, don’t be afraid to let your imagination run wild as long as the focus is capturing pictures from your pet’s perspective.

5. Use natural light

You also need to consider using natural light to eliminate any distractions whatsoever. Artificial lighting can easily distract your pet as well as shift focus from one of the most important windows to their personality. Your pet’s personality is best captured through their eyes. Artificial lighting (i.e. a camera flash) can also frighten your pet as well as cause a red-eye effect. As a result, you should try taking photos of your pet outdoors or in a room that is well lit by natural light.

The above information summarises the most important pet photography tips to consider when you want to capture your pet’s personality in a photo. This list is not exhaustive though, and you may run into problems and/or solutions that have not been mentioned here.

This is not a paid or sponsored post

Read more about How to Photograph Your Dog in our interview with Pet Photographer Kevin Newman.