This week's pet photography theme is colorful.  A google search indicates this word means "having much or varied color; bright" or "full of interest; lively and exciting".  Typically, when I photograph animals I prefer a background that is quite the opposite as it will distract from the subject - in my case a dog.  The world surrounds us with color - color of fur, color of background, color of everything - can you imagine the world in black and white?  What a different place it would be - but then, if we didn't know about color - maybe it wouldn't be an issue.

I had great ideas of getting one of the rescue dogs I photographed this past week to pose in front of a very colorful blanket.  However, many of these dogs were a bit timid and that plan didn't work out.  

This week I met Cesar and he is a senior who lost his owner and entered the Maxx and Me Pet Rescue.  Cesar was fairly easy to photograph - but we were at a busy adoption event with a lot of people, cars and not pretty areas.  The noise didn't bother Cesar, he is quite easy going.  At first we did a simple head photograph with his colorful fur against a plain background.

Our next photo we put Cesar on a orange table and a more colorful background. It's a little bright outside, so Cesar looks like he is squinting a little bit.

I visited our local fabric store searching for a piece of fabric to replace the one our foster puppies decided was fun to shread on the bottom of an antique rocking chair - I found that fabric, but it put me into the area where they have fleece fabrics and they had some really pretty patterns.  My first thought was to put the fabric over a chair and get little Miss Rue to pose, however it quickly became apparent that she didn't really want to model for me.  It was cute because Ollie was sitting on the floor patiently waiting because she is very good at modeling and will almost always step in when Rue doesn't want to!

Here's Ollie against a cute paw footprint - heart pattern (not real bright, but definitely having pastel colors).

Now, if I can only get Rue to be a model for just a few minutes!  She was the hardest of the litter when I met her in September and perhaps that's always going to be a trait for her - "I will not sit still!".  Here's one of her the day I first met her many months ago against a colorful blanket.  She was just over 2 months old in this photograph and is now approaching 10 months of age but still has the same sweet face, just more mature.

My last photo of the week was probably one of the most challenging rescue dogs to photograph, Tyson.  Tyson was afraid of the camera - no doubt about that.  He ran everywhere he could to get away from me and after running under a deck (which of course I didn't follow) he finally ran and hid in this blanket. I had to use flash on this and since I was planning for outdoor portraits, it wasn't the lighting I preferred, but I did learn so rescue dogs are challenging!

Tyson - adopted

That's all for this week!

For more pet photographers sharing their take on this theme, head over to visit Cahlean of About A Dog Photography in MN and then head around the rest of the blog circle.

If you would like to book a custom pet portrait session, send an email to [email protected] or give us a call/text at 813-610-2671 in the Tampa Bay area (Florida).