This is Willie. He’s a lovely little well-aged terrier that I met last month. I got one good photo of him, ears up and eyes bright, before he realized what I was doing. And then, once he caught on, EVERY PHOTO I GOT OF HIM LOOKED LIKE THIS.
You just wonder WHAT horrible crime he’s afraid I’m going to find out about.
So I thought that, instead of ranting about Kafka-esque governments or technology for a change, I’d do a few CONSTRUCTIVE blog entries that specifically address the whole pet portrait process…
Which starts with photos of your animal! I, you see, am not one of those crazy masochistic artists who want to paint ONLY FROM LIFE. Technology, when it works, is AWESOME. And photographs HOLD STILL.
So what this means is that, generally speaking, the better the photograph(s) of your pet that I can work from, the better your finished painting will be. So unless you’re going with professionally-done photos, taken with the needs of a portrait especially in mind, here are a few tips for you to take the best possible pet photos you can. All you need is some preparation and patience to get great photos of your pet. Yes, even those pets that are extremely frustrating, like Willie.
Take that terrier of yours who is animated and talkative and who is cuter than a stuffed animal MOST OF THE TIME. But when you pull out the camera, he looks at you as if you are the paparazzi and he has just realized he is not wearing any underwear. Which, of course, he is NOT. But his ears go down, he tries to look away, and you suddenly understand why they call it a “hangdog” expression.
Ah, if only Britney, Lindsay, and Paris had that same sense of propriety that your terrier has…
And I should mention that usually CATS do not have this particular TYPE of photography problem—it’s more germane to dogs.
But anyhow…here is the first trick I’ve learned to deal with those camera-shy pets—but it mainly works for YOU and YOUR pet, since you see him over an extended amount of time:
The first thing you have to remember is that THE DIGITAL CAMERA IS YOUR FRIEND. You are NOT going to run out of film.
So tip #1 is: START TAKING A LOT OF PHOTOS OF YOUR PET—maybe a few (or a dozen) every day. AND TAKE THEM WITH THE FLASH TURNED OFF. AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOME TREATS OR A CHEW TOY OR BALL OF YARN IN YOUR POCKET.
There are a number of reasons for this:
- It will help your pet get more USED to the idea of being stalked by you, the paparazzi.
- It will stop the association he has of PHOTOS EQUALLING GETTING BLINDED BY A FLASHBULB. And it will stop him from looking like Earl Hickey every time you take a photo.
- He might actually start looking forward to getting his picture taken, since he also gets some Snausages or, I don’t know…a mouse, if that’s your version of a pet treat. Or a round of tug-of-war with his favorite sock. Bribes are good, in this scenario. And, by all means, hold them up by the camera to hold his interest while you get the shots.
And of course, the last reason has to do with percentages. The more photos you take of your pet, the more likely you’ll have some really GOOD ones that you can create a great painting from.
As an artist, I don’t typically use multiple photos in designing a composition unless I have multiple SUBJECTS and then I usually HAVE to because if I take a photo of two dogs at the same time, it’s inevitable that when Dog A is looking Cover-Girl fresh, Dog B is licking his butt or wiping a booger out of his eye or doing his best impression of the Elephant Man. I think it’s just a law of nature.
But I don’t, as a rule, PhotoShop ONE image of an animal’s head onto a different photo of his body. It just tends to be wrong, somehow, in an oddly Pet-Cemetary type of way. So I don’t work that way.
But I do work from one primary photo to capture the pose and then use as many other good, clear photos as I can as references so I can get the portrait just right.
More in the next few days about lighting, angles, focus, and ways of capturing your pet’s personality! But for now, just try some of these things with your pet, and you’ll be surprised at how much more receptive he’ll be to getting his picture taken!
Excuse me now, I have to go off to Willie’s. I'm following up a hunch that there are either BODIES buried in his basement or that he’s smuggling diet pills. I don't know...he just looked like he was UP TO SOMETHING...
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