Dog photography, in many ways, is the same as photographing human subjects. It involves many of the same approaches, techniques, and lighting to ensure a good photograph is captured. Here are a few entry-level tips for mastering the art of dog photography.

Understand the personality of the dog

Every dog is different. If you feel that all dogs are the same, you should go back to the basics and brush up on your pet skills. Throughout my life, I have petted four dogs and handled countless men; in my experience, none have the same personality. You need to understand how each reacts to different stimuli and how they behave. Understanding this will clear the first hurdle toward making great images.

Focus on the eyes

This is true for general human portraitures and valid for capturing great images of dogs. Focusing on the eye makes the eyes sharp and ensures that the final image has a lot of life. But it isn’t easy to do so if the animals are moving about and refusing to stay quiet.

Let them be themselves for a while

That takes us to the next important tip: allowing the animal to behave the way they do for a while so that they feel confident and are not stressed out. I have seen pet owners trying to pull and tug their pets and expect them to behave in socially amicable way. That does not happen straightaway unless your dog has been trained very well. Most likely, your dog will investigate the space, sniff around and stay busy for the first 10 minutes or so. It tends to vary from breed to breed, though. Once they have investigated the space, they will steady down and sit in a place. That is your chance.

Play with them

Some dogs are very energetic compared to others. Beagles, for example, and some smaller breeds are very fidgety and tend to move around energetically until they’re tired. Among larger breeds, Labradors and german shepherds too are also very energetic. They refuse to sit down quietly unless they’re tired. Playing with them does two things. That creates a connection between the animal and you. The second thing is they exhaust some of their abundant energy, so they are finally ready to sit down.

Use the continuous shooting mode

Set your camera to continuous high or burst mode and fire as many frames as possible to capture at least one frame where everything comes together and the image is close to what you had envisioned in the first place. Also, keep the camera ready for impromptu moments. Don’t always bank on having the perfect posed moments; that will be tough and very few. Instead, spontaneous moments are going to get the bulk of your keepers.