How to Photograph Your Pet: Nine Rules That Change the Result
Most people photograph their pet from standing height, in a dim room, from about eight feet away, and then wonder why the picture does not look like the animal they live with.
Nothing on this list needs a better camera. Every one of them is free, and together they are the difference between a photo you scroll past and one you print.
The nine rules
- Get down to their eye level. This is the single biggest one. A photograph taken from human height looks down on the animal, which flattens the face, shortens the muzzle and hides the neck. Kneel, sit, or lie on the floor. Everything else on this list matters less than this.
- Get closer than feels natural. Fill the frame with the head and shoulders. Whatever distance you think is right, take two steps in. You can always crop outwards; you cannot crop inwards.
- Turn the flash off and find a window. Flash flattens fur, kills texture and turns eyes into headlights. A window on an overcast day is the best free light there is. Put your pet a metre or so from it, facing towards it, and stand with the window behind you.
- Look for the catchlight. That small bright dot in the eye is what makes a face look alive. If you cannot see one, move the animal or move yourself until you can. It takes ten seconds and it changes everything.
- Get both ears in. Especially on spaniels, bassets and anything with long, low ears — they are half of what makes the breed recognisable, and they are the first thing a tight crop loses.
- Wait for stillness rather than chasing it. Blurry photographs come from moving animals, not from bad phones. The reliable trick is to photograph them where they already settle: the sofa they sleep on, the patch of sun, the moment after a walk. Set up there and wait.
- Use a sound, not a treat, for attention. A treat in your hand produces a photo of an animal staring at your hand. A short unfamiliar noise — a squeak, a click, a whistle — buys you about one and a half seconds of direct eye contact. Have the camera up and focused before you make it.
- Skip the filters. Filters and heavy auto-enhance shift coat colour, and coat colour is one of the things people are most particular about afterwards. Send the original file rather than the edited one.
- Take thirty and keep one. Professionals do not get it in one frame and neither will you. Burst mode is free. The keeper is usually somewhere in the middle of the sequence, after the animal has stopped reacting to the phone and before it has got bored and left.
Three things that go wrong most often
Backlighting. If the window is behind your pet, the camera exposes for the bright background and your pet becomes a silhouette. Same room, same animal, same phone — turn ninety degrees and it is a different photograph.
Black cats and black dogs. Dark fur eats light, and phone cameras consistently underexpose it into a shapeless patch. The fix is more light rather than more editing: get closer to the window, shoot on a brighter day, and if your phone lets you, nudge the exposure up a notch before you shoot rather than lifting the shadows afterwards.
Two pets, one photo. Group shots are charming and almost never sharp on both animals. If you want a portrait with two pets in it, photograph them separately and send both files. It is easier for everyone, and each animal ends up looking like itself.
If you are sending the photo for a portrait
A few things change when the photograph is going to be illustrated rather than framed as it is.
The pose you send is the pose you get. An artist draws what is in front of them. A photograph taken from the side becomes a portrait in profile. If you want your pet looking out of the picture at whoever walks past, send a photo looking at the camera.
Collars and outfits do not matter. They are not illustrated — your pet is drawn wearing whatever the portrait style calls for. There is no need to take the collar off first, and no need to reshoot because the harness is on.
Resolution matters less than you think. Anything from a phone made in the last decade is comfortably sharp enough. What is not enough is a screenshot of a screenshot, or a photo that has been sent through three messaging apps. Send the original from your camera roll.
The only photo you have is still worth sending. A lot of memorial portraits are made from one imperfect picture taken years ago, because that is what exists. If the guidelines cannot be met, say so. It is usually still possible to make something good, and we would rather tell you before you order than after.
One last thing
Everything above is about giving an artist more to work with, but it applies just as well if you never order anything. Eye level, close, near a window, no flash, thirty frames. Five rules of the nine, and they will improve every photograph of your pet you take for the rest of the animal's life.
If you are photographing with a commission in mind, it is worth reading what actually makes a good custom portrait next — the photograph is the biggest factor, but size and format matter more than most people expect. And if you already have the picture and just want to see the styles, start with the royal portrait collection or, for something quieter, read where that whole look came from first.