Shooting dogs, in the photographic sense of course, is about as fun as photography gets for me. The pictures can be artistic, creative, fun, cute and very often ridiculous. However, getting them to sit and pose isn’t always easy, nor is coming up with something original even when you do get them to do what you want. I’m often ask for tips on shooting dogs – so here are some of the things I look out for.

The Interaction

I think the first thing to bear in mind is that like many subjects, the first thing you need to do to take good photos of animals is to understand them a little. I think we’ve all seen ourselves or at least someone else begging and pleading with a pooch to look their way or do something funny, but unless the right stimulus is presented, the dog will rarely suddenly spring into obedient service.

So some things which I often do when taking pictures of mine or someone else’s dog is to:

• First train them a little. Not a lot but maybe just a couple of minutes of a little bit of sit / down, leash walking if possible. I do this without the camera anywhere near me – just to get acquainted. This also gets the dog used to the idea that they should expect commands from you, and you get to see how they respond and to what tone of voice
• Reward good behaviour for obeying a command. Don’t get the dog too excited or it ends up taking too long to calm down. Rewarding comes from “good dog” and a short ruffle, etc. Stuff like that
• Toys. Playing a few minutes first is also a good way to interact – and gives the added benefit of understanding what the dog’s favourite toys are, something you’ll probably need earlier

So that’s the first five minutes of any dog shoot for me.

Next basically comes observation. Before trying to get the dog to do anything, I just watch it. Seeing what it does, moving around and following with the camera. If it starts doing something interesting, I take a picture – if not I just keep watching. In the past I’ve gotten some of my best photos in this early stages of shoots just by hanging around and watching.

Once getting some ideas from how the dog moves, its personality, etc – I then start taking photos while interacting with it. Getting it to do things, pose, etc. This often needs the owners help and I usually use to a combination of commands (sit, etc) with the promise of rewards if the dogs needs it (resorting to placing tennis balls or treats on my head if necessary).

The final stage for me is after the shoot has finished. If the dog is tired it’ll usually start relaxing, laying down, etc. This is usually something worth hanging around for – again, some great pictures can be gotten this way.

So that is a brief overview of my interaction with the subject. Of course, the above doesn’t work that well if you don’t like dogs very much – but then photography is full of those little challenges :).

In terms of some of the technical considerations like framing, composition, etc. I’ll turn to some examples of different types of shots or processing I like to do.

Focusing on the eyes
Much like when taking human portraits, the eyes of a dog should typically be the focal point in a photograph. You can take that a step further if you have a macro lens or something that at least allows closer focusing and focus almost entirely on the eye. Unlike human eyes, a dog’s eye has a large amount of black in it which makes it very easy to get interesting reflections. Here’s a shot using close up framing which I really liked:

Nikon D70, taken in 2005

Nikon D200, 2006

I like both shots but the second has the added example of having the owners in the reflection.

Frame differently
Unusual and creative portraits can sometimes work particularly well when you don’t necessarily follow the standard rules of framing. Try different things like not including the nose in the picture, or just the eyes and ears. Or half the face. Even better when you make use of the rest of the frame to include an interesting background that might have relevance to the dog, its owners or the house where it stays. An example where all these things worked out for me is here:

Nikon D70, 2005

In this picture, I’m actually using only one hand to hold the camera. The second is being used to balance a tennis ball on my head.

Action Shots
These I haven’t done as much with but what I will say is that action shots of dogs typically fail because the photographer doesn’t take into account the fact that we stand significantly higher than do dogs and shooting down from a higher vantage point often provides very messy pictures where the subject is not isolated from their background. So getting into the right position (particularly at the same eye level as the dog) is always something to consider – even lower if possible. Picture in your mind a shot of a dog jumping to catch a frisby for example. It doesn’t take much imagination to know that a picture would potentially look much better if the photographer was lying under the dog shooting upwards for the catch, than if the photographer was close by shooting down towards the ground. Unfortunately I don’t have many great shots of this kind, although one of my favourites I’ve taken is:

Nikon D200, 2006

I had the wrong lens on the camera at the time (a 60mm f/2.8) macro but it turned out to be good enough to get the shot I wanted.

High Key / High Contrast images
I mention this not because I think it’s the right way to shoot photos of dogs, but simply because it’s one of my favourite ways. When the subject’s fur is the right colour, getting them positioned against a white or bright background to have high key / high contrast images can look really effective. I will typically overexpose an image in camera and then during post processing, blow the highlights out completely using levels, while finally adding a lot of contrast as a last step. Some shots that worked well for me of this kind are here:

Nikon D200, 2006

Nikon D200, 2006

Neither of these images were shot in a studio. Just natural lighting on my balcony and in my office, respectively.

Lighting
Again, another case where dog shots follow the same principal as human portraits is with lighting. It’s easy to forget that good lighting can really make a picture, or at least create a very different effect. This accompanying shot, taken at sunrise in my living room,while not one of my best, clearly shows the dramatic impact the lighting has on the subject.

Nikon D200, 2006

Notice the details
This works well when a dog is, well dog tired. Then you get a chance to move around the subject and look for distinguishing features – the paws are always a good bet. Here, the focus is not on the face / eyes but on some other part of the body. A wide aperture is recommended here to make use of shallow depth of field.

In a shoot, I always try to get a shot like this:

Olympus OM-1, 2006

Getting in close, and wide
So ditch the macro lens now but still go in close with a wider angle lens. A UV filter is definitely recommended here unless you want your front element to have nose or lick marks :). Here depth of field requires experimentation – as does the focal point. Normally with portraits you’d choose to focus on the eyes and while I’d typically recommend to continue doing that even in these cases, there might be times when focusing on the closest part – the nose- adds to the character of the shot. In the following shot, I felt the eyes were the best place to focus:

Olympus OM-1, 2006

Obviously this gets even more fun if you have a fisheye.

Environment
Finally, consider changing a dogs environment to create different or creative shots. It doesn’t to mean taking them somewhere dramatic, it might just mean putting some distance between you and the dog, or shooting them in interesting places. Again, try to avoid busy backgrounds and all those usual things. Dogs on stairs I think make great photos and I’ll end with two shots which are definitely among my favourites. These were both shot in my house – and while taking some time to convince my Rotty’s to stay there and stay still – I thought it was worth it in the end.

Nikon D200, 2006

Nikon D200, 2006

Well that pretty much comes to the end of my introductory thoughts. Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did taking the shots.