How to Take Great Dog Photographs

You're a dog lover. If you weren't, you wouldn't be here. And you want great photos of your dog. After all, they are our loves, our kids, our treasures, our friends, our family.

But nine times out of ten, we get photos of them that are . . . well . . . unsatisfying. The dogs turn away, you get the wrong end of them, you get a lot of background and little dog, or it turns out to be just a 'snapshot' and not a real representation of that goofy, loving character that we want to capture.

So how do you do it?



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Make sure the dog is comfortable with both you and the camera. For me, this is very different if I am shooting my own dog versus taking photographs of another person's dog. My own dog has been used to me pointing a camera at him since he was 7 weeks old. I started training him to sit and stay at that age, and took advantage of his 'stay' mode to shoot. At this point, he pretty much freezes and poses when he sees me holding the camera! But your dog doesn't have to be a puppy to learn this. It is NEVER too late to start teaching a dog that the camera is our friend!

If it is another person's dog, I take some time - half an hour or more - to simply acclimate the dog to me, my camera and our surroundings if we are not on the dog's home turf. I don't even try to get any 'keeper' shots in the first half hour. Let them check you and your gear out, get comfortable with you, and start feeling enough at ease that they can be themselves - running, playing, just doing their own doggy thing.

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Get in close enough and eliminate distracting backgrounds.

Dogs are fast. No doubt about it. You have to be ready, with your camera's settings already fixed where they should be, to take that shot when you see it because chances are, that 5 seconds is all you have on that particular head tilt, or eyes on you, or other adorable action. But before you even think about that, think about your background. If you have distracting elements in your background (tables and chairs, half a patio door, shadows falling across the dog's body in unflattering ways, wires or fences in the background that don't add to the composition) - MOVE. Move yourself, move the dogs. Move the dog to an area where there either aren't any distracting elements in the background, or the elements somehow add visually to the composition of the photograph.

Then get in close enough that you aren't just taking a snapshot of that day you went out with the camera and the dogs. Get in close enough that you make the dog the central theme of the photograph. Unless, of course, you want your patio chairs and table to have as much visual impact as your dog!

It's all about composition. Think about what you want to show in your photographs before you take them. Take the time while the dogs are acclimating to walk around and view your area from different angles and figure out which ones may make good images compositionally.

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Persevere. Don't get discouraged. Be prepared to take a lot of photos and look through them with a discriminating eye. Ditch the ones with poor focus or distracting elements, since there is not much that can be done to save those. Keep the ones that speak to you.

And the obvious background to this tip - know your camera and its settings and be familiar enough with your photo software that you can take advantage of what it has to offer. If you are on a learning curve with your camera, and/or your software in addition to taking dog photographs, just take it bit by bit. Keep shooting, keep evaluating your shots (on your computer's monitor, not in-camera) and learning from them. Your images will improve.

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Take some risks. Try new things. Explore. This is the age of digital images, where you can delete at a touch of a button. So don't be afraid to try new things. Some people may like your images, some may not. What matters is if YOU, the artist, like them.

Have fun shooting, and most of all, have fun with the dogs!

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