Pet Portrait Photography - Composition
Composition is very important in photography. Try to take photos of your pets with a very simple background so that it doesn’t interfere with the subject. I always find a garden with grass is best and someone to help you with a squeaky toy or biscuit to hand!
Framing the shot - Things to look for when framing your shots are –
- Have you left too much room around the dog?
- If you are aiming for a full body shot check that all limbs, ears, tail etc are within the frame
- Are you on the level of the dog?
- Don't worry about Extraneous objects /features in the background such as other dogs, people, telegraph poles etc. I will omit these features when painting the portrait.
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Although this photo was taken at the dogs level the limbs have been chopped out of the frame. Its difficult, often impossible for me to make up limbs, so ensure they are within the frame. |
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This is a better photo, we are looking at the dog on its level, all its limbs are in the frame and the dog is sitting at a superb angle for a full body portrait. |
Moving closer to your subject
Try and fill the frame with your subject, you can see in the example on the right that there is far too much background in the first picture. I need to be able to see the detail of your dog, so get closer to your subject. A common misconception is that I can just zoom into a photo, such as the distant photo, and see as much detail as in the close photo but this isn’t the case. Clients often offer to enlarge the image for me so that I can see more detail – again this doesn’t work, I can make the photo as large as I like but it can not add information and detail into the photo. If you particularly want a background in your portrait, take a second shot form the same angle, level etc and I can combine the two. |
