You might be thinking:
Surely there can’t be that much to posing a dog and getting it to look at the camera that you can dedicate a whole month to the subject, right?
Wrong!
In my opinion, the pose you choose for the dog, and the expression and gazing direction make up a huge component of your photo, and lack of attention to these elements is one mistake I see a lot of new photographers and pet parents making.
After all, aside from small changes to the editing (and these aren’t final or proper edits!), what is the difference in these shots?
Would you agree that each one has a different feeling or mood, or shows something different about Journey, or tells a different story?
A different pose or expression doesn’t mean the photo is necessarily better or worse, but it can dramatically change the feeling, impression or story we get from the image. (And some may certainly be better or worse!)
Take these four photos as another example.
What has changed here? Really, only the expression and gazing direction. Again, while not every photo is necessarily “bad”, there is definitely one here that I would prefer to use over the others.
Notice that in both the examples above, even though Journey and Alba were both looking all around in different directions and with different expressions, Emily continued to take photos.
Just because the dog doesn’t look at the camera or in the direction you intended, doesn’t mean it’s a waste. Take the photos.
If you need to, take extra photos to the side they were looking into, and we can use this later to fix the composition. (More on this in future lessons!). Unexpected, candid shots can often prove more interesting and more full of story than photos of the dog looking into the camera, or in the direction you’d intended.
Most new photographers begin with their dog in a sit, looking at the camera. The mouth of the dog might be open.
Then, there are variations of this theme. Sitting here, sitting there, sitting everywhere. Looking at the camera. Mouth open.
And I want to be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the dog sitting, or with looking at the camera, or with the mouth being open…
But the fact is that:
- it doesn’t say much about the dog or their personality except that they are a good dog and they can sit and look at the camera
- it’s not really very interesting
- it doesn’t tell a story
- it doesn’t often suit the mood you want to create
So in this topic, I want to encourage you to move beyond sit-and-look-at-the-camera. Know that those photos have their place… but there’s so much more we can be doing.
