High Energy Photoshoots: Pets and Childrenwww.sleeklens.com
Everyone loves pets, and everyone loves children. Photographers can get some wonderful pictures of children and pets, but it is often difficult to get the right circumstances where the pets and children behave the way you want them to for the photoshoot. They have a lot of energy, short attention spans, and it can push you to your limits to get the photo, but it isn’t impossible if you just have some patience and a few tricks up your sleeve. Here are some good tips for you to get the best photos of pets and children.
Table of Contents
Understand the Challenges
There are going to be several challenges when you photograph children and pets. Understanding these challenges will ensure you get the photos you want.
First, respond to the personality of your model. That’s not only for a child, but the pet as well. You can do this with an individual child, or with a group of children. Let them be children, and let them act naturally for the photo. The best photos of children are they ones where you can really see what they’re like, when you really capture their personality. Same with pets.
Second, you are going to be dealing with fast moving subjects and that means you need to be very quick on your feet.
Lastly, it can be hard for the kids to stay in one spot when you want to take advantage of certain light. Natural lighting is really what you want to go for when photographing children and pets playing.
Have Fun
When you are photographing children or pets for portraits, have fun with it. Understand that they are not going to act how you want them to act. They are going to act how they want to act, so you need to take advantage of that. If the child, or children, have a lot of energy and want to run around and play, then take them outside and get photos of them climbing trees, playing in leaves, running around a field. All of this can make for wonderful, and relaxed, photos that a family will cherish for many years to come.
With pets, you can follow the same mentality. If you are photographing cats, then let them play. Give them some cat nip, work to make them interact with each other using toys and strings. With dog photography, it is much easier as the dog is very eager to please. They will want to do the things you want them to do. Have them sit and stay and capture the picture. You can throw a ball outside, or into water, and get those pictures that show the dog having the time of its life.
Don’t Expect Boredom
What I mean by this is that you should not expect that the children are just going to stand around, or the dogs and cats won’t just sit there and not move. Well, maybe the cats won’t move. You should expect a lot of energy and you should expect that the children and pets don’t want to be bored. In that regard, because of the high energy, make sure you capture everything with a fast shutter speed. Make sure there is a lot of light around you as well. Natural light will be the best for pictures, so being outside is a good option if you want to get the best photos of your pets and children models. If you have to take pictures in the studio, then make sure that you have plenty of light to work with.
Think Outside the Box
When you are getting the photos, especially of pets, then think outside the box. Don’t just have the dogs sit and pose, have them take a bath and shake. Have them photographed soaking wet, or running after a ball, or playing with their favorite toy. With cats, have them play with string instead of just lay on the ground, or have them interact with other cats. If they are just laying around, then make a sudden noise to get their attention and have them look directly at the camera. There are so many options for creating some really great and interesting photos of pets.
We love our pets and we love our children and some see their pets as their children. Help preserve the memories of your dearest ones through amazing photoshoots that capture the high energy and unique personalities of the models.
Before I became Editor-in-Chief of PHLEARN Magazine, I spent over five years specializing in Photography Writing and contributed articles regularly to sites like PictureCorrect, Sleeklens, and PhotoWorkout. Photography has always been a huge passion of mine; I may not be professionally trained in the art, but the knowledge and experience I have gained writing about photography techniques, interviewing some of the biggest and most inspiring photographers out there, and covering industry events has been invaluable!
Facebook
Google +
Comments (0)
There are no comments yet.