Pet Photography - Theme 'The Eyes have it'
It's been a while since I have done the pet photography blog circle, but working to get back into the swing as 2019 is now just about a month gone! This week's theme is "The Eyes Have it" - the overall concept of this week is to focus on the eyes of your subject, in our case - a pet. In general, any subject that has eyes, providing the eyes are in the photograph, should be the focus point - if the eyes are not sharp, then the connection is not necessarily made as the photographer intends.
I photograph rescue dogs quite often and I'm always trying to make a connection with the viewer. An important part of my volunteer job is to help find homes for all these wonderful dogs that have somehow not been fortunate enough to find and stay in their forever homes. Specifically, my job is to try and capture the personality of the dog in hopes that it will help the dog to find a foster home or better yet a permanent home.
Meet Nick. When Nick first came out for us to photograph, I immediately noticed this dog has very long legs! Like wow, he has legs that are long and slender and then a small body. I can't say that I have noticed this with any other dog thus far but it was definitely a striking feature for this young dog. Nick is about one year of age and was shy when he first came out. Each dog is unique, some have had better lives than others and it takes some time to determine exactly what the rescue dog will allow us to do with respect to photographing them. It was pretty obvious that Nick wasn't sure about us either - so he stayed a fair distance away, I grabbed a camera with a longer lens and started slowing photographing Nick. Well, by the end of our photo shoot, Nick figured out we were 'good people' and he came up to me and let me pet him - perhaps that was his way of saying 'Thank you'.
Meet Snow - an almost pure white dog who is looking for a foster home, or even better a forever home. Snow came out into the play yard and didn't want to sit still - I'm sure she was enjoying having several people that were all interested in spending time with her. The challenge was how to get her to settle down such that we could get some good photographs and share them to find her a new family. I got out a baby blue blanket to use as the background for our photograph, but Snow had other ideas. She immediately curled up on the blanket - that was our 'ah ha' moment when we realized that she loved blankets. We put the blanket over a chair, she snuggled up and that gave us the winning photos to help her find a home. Her beautiful light brown eyes looking directly into the camera "The Eyes have it!".
Dogs have quiet moments just like us and other creatures. During our time with Snow I captured this quiet moment where she bowed her head and appeared to being praying. She is still looking for a foster home and forever home - hopefully that day will come for her soon.
For more pet photographers sharing their take on this theme, head over to visit Angela Schneider of Noses & Toes Pet Photography in Spokane, WA, has started a project to spotlight rescues in her area 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).