People often come up during my mini sessions and doubt how their dog will do for a quick photo. I hear things like my dog won’t sit like that. My dog isn’t well trained and won’t listen. No one ever gets good photos of them. I always smile and say if you don’t mind give me 5 minutes and give me a chance. The dog somehow listens to me and I get a photograph.
I typically offer fun sessions around holidays where I photograph several hundred dogs in a day. This is when people typically have the most doubts about getting a photograph of their dog. They haven’t seen my photography and most likely have gone to a big box store and the results are entirely different from someone who is new to pet photography or isn’t their profession.
Dogs for me are all emotionally and mentally different. It’s the joy of each session for me. Typically dogs also act differently in new situations, new people, and new locations. During my photography session I am always trying to observe the dog and see what personality they are showing. I approach each dog differently based on their personality meaning whether they are timid or playful. This is my secret to get the dogs attention and capture great images that last a lifetime.
The absolute best dogs for me are curious, active, friendly dogs. Obedience only helps me with off leash action photos in the “wild”. When I have a dog that is paying lots of attention to me the session flows smoothly. Dogs don’t always have to sit for their portrait. The dog above I felt looked better standing in the final image. The image had the leash removed in the final image you see. He eventually calmed down and understood the reward based session and we could safely remove the leash without Photoshop.
Teaching a dog obedience is something that can take quite a bit of time. This is typically not my goal of a photo session. However it doesn’t take the dog long to change their behavior towards me and start to understand how to get a reward. Occasionally I don’t try to change the dogs behaviors at all during the session. This is something I base on my experience and past results. One example of letting “dogs be dogs” was a recent photography client and her two dogs. The one dog wanted to chew on sticks and wasn’t interested in “posing for my camera”. The dog was on special medication and it made her extremely hungry and she would chew on random things. This session was outdoors and there was probably no less than 500 twigs around. This is something that I am not going to be able to change, so I simply grabbed the best twig and used it as a “lure” and she quickly enjoyed the classic game of fetch with the twigs and the session was successful.
Prada- Living her best life.
One of the factors of my photography that can cause a few hiccups is the thoughts, anxieties, and worries of the PERSON. Dogs are great at knowing something is changing in their owners or in strangers they meet. Some dogs simply pass this off and go on about their days;however, more often than not the dog is nervous as well. This makes things a tad more complicated for me. What I often do is calm the person and explain that I will get images of their family member. The dog realizes things are getting better and calms down so that they can pose like a pro.
Icy!
My favorite call before a session is that their dog is the “worst dog ever”. My dog won’t sit, listen and I don’t think you can get photos of them. THIS IS THE CALL THAT I ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO GET. I will ask why they believe that, if others have tried and failed, and when they want to set this up. I have not met a single dog that I couldn’t get one image that was up to my standards. The conversation on the phone is typically the same, I explain to them that we may need to change expectations. I will also explain my guidelines for the session. This is often asking a few questions about why the dog wouldn’t do well with photos. I often can figure out the trepidations towards the session and address them before we even meet.
One of the things that I love about dogs is how random they can be at times. The best way I can explain this is “zoomies.” This sometimes happens after giving a dog a bath in which they run around the area to release the tensions or something. Would love to know what exactly is going on in their head at that moment. What I have found in years of meeting dogs in almost every imaginable situation is that they typically have a baseline for behavior. So I see where they are on the “spectrum” and I use their strengths to capture images. If a dog is in front of my lens and he doesn’t like treats, but he is absolutely in love with a ball, I will always use the highest valued reward last.
Do you like listening to me ramble about pet photography? Let me know in the comments or send an email that you are enjoying my content. If your dog is “hard to get photos of” give me a call.