Photograph Your Pet - How to Choose the Right Background

Megan with Paws and Claws Photography here. The next think I'm going to speak to you about is props. To add interest to your portrait you can have seasonal props or a background. A good example would be if you take your pet with you to the beach on vacation, the beach makes a great example. There are all kinds of drift wood and stuff that you can throw inside the picture to make them look like they're outside on the beach. You can also consider photographing your pets in a pile of leaves during the Fall. Leaves make a great picture. Even in the Fall you can do pumpkins with hay bale. You can kind of stack the hay bales up and have the pumpkins next to your pet. That makes a great picture as well. If they do have a favorite toy or treat, you can have that in the picture with them. Like I said before, it definitely could make them feel a little bit more comfortable if you have that in the picture, but it also adds interest to your picture because it shows your pets true personality. The number one thing that I definitely want to tell you about and when everybody makes the biggest mistake is during Christmas. You have the typical picture of your pet next to the Christmas tree, but I do want to say unfortunately the Christmas trees do not make a very good background. They tend to be too distracting and you can only catch the bottom of the Christmas tree. Also, especially if your tree is lit, sometimes the lighting of the lights on the tree and the ornaments can flash the camera and it causes you to look at the background instead of your actual pet, and of course your pet is what your main interest wants to be. So, instead of using your Christmas tree I can always give you an example of, you can use a garland. Wrap garland around your pet, or you can use packages, and set the packages up. Just totally forget about the tree and just use packages, or like I said, a garland, that works best.