5 Tips for Taking Christmas Pet Photos
Taking pictures of your pets can be quite a challenge but here’s five tips to make it easier and ensure you get cute photos to send to your family and friends.
Get all of your props and decorations ready before bringing in your pets. Unlike humans - cats, dogs, and other pets don’t wait around for you to get everything together and get your camera in place. So make sure you have everything ready before you go to bring your pets into the room.
Take some test shots. No matter which camera you have, it is always advised to take a few test photos or shots to make sure your camera’s settings are all ready to go for when you bring your pets into the picture (and yes, pun is completely intended there, haha). Some things to make sure are correct are your camera’s ISO (which you should keep relatively low. If you see that your image is dark - use more lighting even if you only have a lamp or a ceiling light), focus (sometimes with pets, it is much easier to use auto focus), and shutter speed (remember to keep your shutter speed [for DSLR’s] relatively fast since your pets will move quite a bit and you want to freeze them in place).
Make sure you have plenty of treats at the ready. Remember that your pets can’t understand what is going on so it’s not that you need to reward them more than you just need something to distract them from what’s going on long enough to get your shot. While you are getting the photos, remember to pet and play with your pet(s) a little just to reassure them that the camera flash and everything going on is alright.
Once your pets are in the room, set up your shot as fast as possible. One tip is when you are coming up with ideas for your Christmas photo, try to come up with a concept that allows your pets to lay down so it is easier for you to keep your pets in one place rather than trying to have your pets sit up straight or do a certain action, unless your pet is trained to do that action. It is extremely difficult to have them perform that action otherwise.
Make sure your photo is bright so try to use lots of lighting while shooting your photo even if it is just household lamps or ceiling lights. Remember that when your image gets printed that it will print darker than what it looks like on your computer or camera LCD screen. You can always brighten up your photo later in your computer photo editor but remember the more you edit an image in “post”, the less quality your image will be so it is always better to do as much as you can while you are shooting even if it takes a couple extra minutes to set up.
Remember some of the best photos aren’t set up in advance though so capture the cute and funny moments year-round to make sure you have a great holiday card later. You can also get photos throughout the year and create stunning photo calendars to give to family, friends, or your top customers.
If you’re looking for really high-quality holiday cards with great personalized options, a great company to choose is vistaprint.com. You can upload your images, add personalized comments inside your card, and even personalize the envelope your cards will be sent in; all for one really low price. Plus, from now until the end of the year VistaPrint is offering 50% off their already low price for all holiday cards and photo calendars using the coupon code: WINTER during checkout.
That’s it for this week and check back for more weekly tips in the new MHP blog.
