How to: Take Better Pictures of Your Pet (with your Phone!)
Your dog is lying on the couch, his head resting on the armrest, looking extra adorable. He sees you walking into the room and - OMG, look at his cute puppy eyes! You pull out your phone from your pocket as quickly as you can, get a quick picture, then open up the photo and…. wait, why does he look so blurry? And why doesn’t the photo do his sweet, sleepy face justice? And why, no matter how many photos you take, does it miss that “something special” you see with your very own eyes?
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to have this happen with phone photos - especially when you’re taken by surprise when your pet does something super cute! And we can’t have a professional photographer on-hand and ready to go all the time. So how do we still get great photos of our pets at home, when the moment strikes? Thankfully, our phones have better cameras now than ever, so they can do a lot of the legwork for us - but even beyond our phones’ capabilities, there are steps we can take to avoid all of these problems - and more!
To help with this common complaint (even I have been known to suffer from a blurry iPhone pic from time to time), I have compiled a list of the best ways to take better pictures of your pet with your phone below. Follow these steps, and you will be rewarded ten-fold by your pets’ adorable, perfectly-framed “pics”, just with an extra little bit of effort. So read on, and then share your pet’s adorable snapshots with the world!
Try sticking to natural light.
This rule gets “first place” on the list, because it makes such a huge difference in your photos! While professional photographers with professional cameras and editing tools can play with and balance artificial lighting, the easiest way for us to get a quick, beautiful picture of our pets is by using natural light. The simplest way to follow this tip is to go outside with your dog or cat, whether in your backyard or on a walk, and take a photo of them. This is especially effective the hour after sunset or the hour before sunrise (“Golden Hour” as we photographers like to call it!), when the sun is low in the sky and won’t create any harsh shadows on your pet’s face.
Now, this rule might feel a bit challenging if you can’t make the trip outdoors. Maybe you have an indoor-only cat, or it’s a rainy day and your pup doesn’t feel like going outside. But you don’t have to be outside to use natural light, and you might even find that you like natural light indoors best! If you want to photograph your pet inside, choose a time during the day when you have the most natural light possible. Then, turn off all of your lights (so the only light left is coming from outside). Pick a room with the biggest windows or glass doors you can find, get your pet to sit close by, and voila! You can illuminate them with a soft, diffused, flattering light.
Get on their level, and line up your phone camera with their eyes.
I think most of us with furbabies can agree that our pets’ faces carry so much personality and expression - and they’re one of the things we love most about them! To highlight your dog or cat’s (or really any animal’s) personality and to make them the “star” of their photos, try to only take pictures at their level. To do this, you can either crouch down and bring your whole body to their level or just change the height of your phone - whatever is most comfortable for you.
We’re mostly used to seeing our pets from a top-down angle, and those photos can certainly be cute too. But taking pictures at the height of your pet’s eyes can make them really stand out as the focus of the image!
“Zoom” with your legs, instead of your phone.
For a clearer, higher quality photo, move your body forwards or backwards instead of relying on your phone’s zoom capabilities. You want your pup’s face to take up more of the image? Just bring yourself closer to them! Taking a few steps closer or farther can really make a difference for your photo, but trying to zoom in on your device will often cause you to lose precious image quality. Using the “zoom” function on your phone, in most cases, highlights “noise” (distracting pixels and fragments) in your photo. This is especially true if the lighting around your furbaby is less than ideal, like in the evening or in a dark room. Only use the phone camera’s zoom function as a last resort. If you can, just take the photo further away and try cropping it!
Watch out for the background.
While our surroundings often can’t - and aren’t meant to be - completely mess-free, a clean or solid backdrop can work wonders on a photograph. An empty wall, a tidy porch, or a vast clearing (versus a pile of packages, a busy street, or a dense thicket of bushes) could all mean the difference between visual harmony and distraction. Move any distracting objects, choose a background without too many conflicting textures and colors, and do your best to keep other people or dogs out of the photo. This way, your pup will stand out as the focus of your image! And - as always - make sure your pet is safe in their setting. Train tracks and roads are not safe (or legal, for that matter) spots to take your pet’s photo.
Grab a treat (or toy, or other favorite thing!)
Here’s the fun part - or at least, the fun part for your pet! Doing this will help you get your pet’s attention attention when trying to photograph them. Grab their favorite treat or snack, their most beloved squeaky ball, or a fun chew toy and pull it out right when you want them to look at the camera. But use these sparingly, and only after you have the other elements in place - otherwise they’ll get bored of your antics and stop paying attention (or they could even get sick from eating too many treats - and no pet parent wants that!)
Have patience.
When all else fails, ultimately, having patience is most likely to get you the “heart-stealing” photo you’re hoping for. Sometimes, dogs and cats, like people, just don’t feel like “performing” - even for a treat or toy. Some pets just don’t like the way cameras and phones look or sound, or they find them threatening. If you let your pet be as comfortable as possible, let them have (their idea of) a good time, and keep trying, you will get a meaningful and sweet photo eventually. Good things come to those who wait, and to those who don’t give up. So if you ever feel frustrated or overwhelmed, take a break and try again later. And when you think you already got a great photo, take another one anyway! Taking more pictures than you think you need gives yourself more opportunities to get the one you’re looking for - and you never know, when you let your pet be themselves, you might like the next photo of them even more.
Example:
After
Before
In this photo, my dog Echo was lying on a visually busy fabric couch next to a book stack. I was standing far away and much higher than her eye height, and had to zoom way in to take the photo. This made the image noisy, pixel-y, and overall not very pretty to look at (although she’s still super cute). There was also several conflicting light sources - a window, a lamp, and the light from a TV, which made the photo’s colors rather strange.
This photo is like a breath of fresh air compared to the first one! I coaxed Echo over to a doorway where there was lots of diffuse, indirect light, and I crouched to get at her level. I also stayed close and cropped the photo instead of zooming in. The background isn’t clear of all possible distractions (hello, TV!) but in a pinch, these simple changes made all the difference.
I took both of those on the same day, in the same location (even down to the same room - and that’s admitting that my home is less than perfect!), within 5 minutes. All it took was a few changes and a little bit of patience - Echo looks brighter, clearer, more in-focus, and it’s clear that she’s the star of the show. Overall, the after photo is just so much better! Just like that, it’s pretty easy to get nice photos of your pet once you get the hang of it, and I have full faith in you.
Now go out and enjoy practicing these 6 tips! And feel free to share your new-and-improved photos of your pet, I love to see them! :)
