Expert Tips on Photographing Your Pets

A few days ago a friend (a fan of both good photography and pets) discovered a Web site with particularly interesting and expressive photos of dogs and cats. I checked out the site, Fat Orange Cat Studio, and was mighty impressed with how photographer Li Ward captures that blink-of-the-eye moment. I take lots of photos of my dog and cat but I am always about two seconds behind.

So how does she do it? I contacted Ms. Ward and asked her if she would share some tips that everyday photographers could use to snap better shots of their pets. She was happy to answer some questions. So get the pets pumped for a weekend of photo sessions. Here goes!

What type of lens do you recommend? A fast prime, or do you need a zoom to get in close?

I have one prime and one zoom. The lens that gets the most use during my pet shoots is my 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom. While not a prime, it’s very fast and works great in low lighting. It focuses quickly — a must when shooting pets — and I love the versatility I get in the varying focal lengths. I love shooting wide angle, but it’s great to still get the portrait shots too without having to stop to change lenses or switch cameras. When you’re photographing animals that are always on the move, time is of the essence.

My prime is the 50mm f/1.4. I use it when I am in especially low or tricky lighting situations. Having those several extra stops is key. I love using it for up-close portraits and will shoot wide open for those creamy, dreamy shots. For these, I do get physically close to the pet, if it lets me. Some are camera-shy, while others lick the lens. A more powerful zoom would be useful in those cases.

Any other technical recommendations? For instance, do you prefer to shoot in aperture mode? Looks like you’re using a wide aperture, right?

I shoot in manual mode 99.9 percent of the time. For situations in which a lot is going on at once — lighting conditions are changing frequently, the animal is moving around, running to and fro in a yard that has both shade and sun — I might switch to shutter or aperture priority so I can concentrate more on getting the shot rather than messing with the camera.

I also almost always shoot in burst mode, usually in slow burst at 2 to 3 frames per second. If I’m trying to capture a really animated subject, then I use a fast burst of 5 frames per second. You’ll be able to catch unpredictable things like cats licking their chops, or some other funny facial expressions that come and go in a blink of an eye.

I do like shooting wide open, but it really depends on the situation and type of shot I’m looking for. For example, I love flare shots or backlit shots and for the same location, I might shift my lens slightly and shoot two different ways: compose so that the sun is just off-frame, wide open and metered against the subject so the subject is lit and the sky is blown out. And then the opposite: recompose so the sun is more in frame, but the subject partially blocks the sun with its head, stop down to smaller aperture so the sun flare becomes a pointed star and the subject is a silhouette.

What about angles? You seem to often be at the animal’s level but sometimes above.

Yes, I end up doing a lot of gymnastics during a shoot. I’m crouching, kneeling, on my back, on my side, waking up sore the next morning.

Shooting from just where you are results in a photo that’s pretty boring, because you’re capturing your pet at an angle that everyone else also sees. I do mostly shoot at the animal’s eye level. Now you’re in their world, two or three feet off the ground, and it results in a more personal, intimate photo.

But I also try to shoot from every other conceivable angle: directly above, directly below, slightly below, from the back (the back of a cat’s head is hilarious to me for some reason), from the side. Basically I’m never standing up straight and am constantly contorting. It’s a great workout.

How do you quickly capture pets? They move so fast.

Like I mentioned previously, I shoot mostly in burst mode. That, and the fact that I just keep shooting. The camera never leaves my face until I feel I have captured what I want for that particular moment. My eye is glued to the viewfinder.

Back in the day when I was obsessively photographing just my own cats, I’d wait for them to do something interesting or cute before I actually brought the camera up to shoot. Of course by that time, 1 or 2 seconds have elapsed, and they’re doing something less interesting, and I’ve missed the shot.

Now, I sort of treat my still camera as a video camera. Even if I’m not actively shooting, and even if the subject is not doing something “capture-worthy,” I continue tracking through the viewfinder and recomposing. Because soon enough they will do something capture-worthy, and I’ll be ready to press the shutter the second it happens.

One of my favorites is one I took of a Lab chewing on a stick. Nothing terribly exciting on paper, but I kept shooting anyway and caught a moment when the dog looked up and spread his gums wide, baring his teeth and with the stick between them so that he looked like the world’s most huggable shark. In half a second, that moment passed. I laugh every time I look at it.

And even if the animal is moving too fast and you end up getting blurred shots, that’s O.K. Sometimes better than O.K. Some of my favorite shots are ones where I couldn’t focus in time. They may not be “technically” correct, but there’s a sense of movement, and you really have captured the essence of the pet that way — active, happy, always on the move. Sometimes it’s the imperfect shots that end up having the most personality.

How do you get the attention of a pet?

Treats, ham, roast beef, squeaky toys, patience. With dogs, I like making meowing sounds. Seems to get their attention every time, and as a bonus, they give the quizzical head tilt. It’s a little trickier with cats because if you make an attention-making noise more than even once, they will ignore you thereafter.

What I usually do with cats, especially the more aloof ones, is to get in position to shoot, make a noise once, take the shot, and that’s the end. It hardly ever works twice. Sometimes you can tell if they’re stressed or nervous, tired or bored. When that happens, I don’t push it.

In your photos, the dogs and cats seem so relaxed and playful, yet they also seem very responsive to you and the camera. How do you do this?

If they seem relaxed and playful, that’s because they are! I let them be whatever it is they are. I would say 80 percent of my shoots are totally candid. I’m following the animal around while it does its thing, whatever that may be.

The other 20 percent are the more posed shots, where for variety’s sake I try to get the dog or cat to sit or stand where I’d like them to. Sometimes you have to motivate them to do other things. But there is a lot of patience involved in that. If they respond, great. If they don’t, we move on to something else. Or we call it a day.

Is there any way to avoid the eye-glow (similar to red-eye in humans) caused by flash?

Yes. Don’t use it. I prefer natural or ambient lighting during pet shoots and try to avoid using flash when I can.

However, if you need to use flash, make sure you don’t fire while your pet is looking straight at the camera. Shift so that you’re shooting from the side, or wait for your pet to look slightly away before you press the shutter.

Do you have any tips on composition? Your images are very beautifully composed.

I usually compose so that the subject is off-frame, or off-center. Centered shots are usually pretty boring. I also like getting extremely macro, focusing just on an ear or a snout. I like looking for attributes that make your pet who he or she is, like the way her left ear tends to flop, or how green his eyes are, or how round her paws are. I will zoom in on those and fill the entire frame with just that. And I like doing the opposite, where a colorful wall fills most of the frame, and you get just a little nip of whiskers or a tip of a tail off frame.

Experiment and practice and experiment some more until your photos don’t just show an image, but tell a story as well.

Do you have any tips for people using point-and-shoot cameras?

Chances are your point-and-shoot will have the ability to shoot in aperture, shutter, and manual modes in addition to the preset Portrait, Flower, Sport modes. If so, I would suggest ignoring the preset modes for the moment, and play around in the other modes to get a sense of how lighting, shutter speed, apertures affect the outcome of a photo.

I would also turn off the flash and experiment with natural lighting. Good lighting is key: soft morning light, soft evening light, soft evening light filtered through trees (my favorite), through a window or skylight, cloudy-day light (my second favorite). Be aware of the lighting, and don’t be afraid to move from where you are to find it, or move furniture around to get it.

And of course, you don’t have to have a fancy-pants camera in order to compose an image well. You only need to have a working eye for that one, and a lot of experimentation and practice.