Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
I love photographing animals in the studio, and I’m obviously not the only one. When actor and photographer Josell Mariano was asked to look after his friend’s cat, Jade, for whom an Instagram account has now been created, Mariano decided to go a little… “extra”.
With a full-on photo shoot, Mariano recreated a cheesy 80s style portrait session. Yes, with a cat. And the results are both hilarious and amazing.
It doesn’t feel like almost a year ago since Google announced Google Lens. It’s Google’s machine learning system to assist your camera to help make your life easier. It helps it to identify what it’s looking at and then do or show you things based on what it sees. Now, Google has announced that it can see your pet. And not only see them but identify them. The goal is to offer you photo books and videos dedicated to your furry friend.
I love photographing animals. It’s great fun and they often come with a lot of personality, especially dogs. And who doesn’t have a dog or know somebody with a dog you can play with? If you’ve never tried photographing dogs before, though, it can be a bit of a learning curve. But to make life easier, here’s photographer Phil Harris with 10 tips in 100 seconds to get your creative juices flowing.
Good photos are instrumental in the animal rescue/shelter world. You only get one chance to have the animal make their first impression on a prospective adoptive pet parent. Poor photos can literally be the death of adoptable animals. In this article, I will give my top 10 tips for better animal rescue shelter photos, designed to melt the hearts of the potential adoptee.
When at all possible, I highly recommend using a DSLR camera in order to produce the best results. In reality, this is not always possible, so many of these tips can be used even if you are forced to use a cell phone or point and shoot camera.
Late last year my wife and I had to say goodbye to one of our beloved dogs Sophie. She was far too young and her loss was devastating. After several months one of my breeder clients (Kristen from Zero Gravity Australian Shepherds) announced a litter coming. I have photographed many of her litters and have used her dogs as models in many of my concept shoots. We have always admired her dogs so we decided it was time to add a puppy to our home.
One of the things I love about photography apart from creating images is the ability to share what I do in the hope to inspire others, with that in mind I wanted to write how I photographed the newest member of our family, Loki.
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After the fantastic experience I had hosting my first Dog Photo Booth at Glens Falls Pet Fest in City Park, Glens Falls last year, I knew I had to return for the 2nd annual event. As simple as the concept may sound, hosting a photo booth (let alone one for dogs) involves a number of technicalities. Having never hosted a photo booth before, last year was a tremendous learning experience for me as a photographer.
When the event ended, I shared my photographs online and they were viewed by hundreds of thousands of people — which was pretty cool. After the fact, I had photographers reach out to me and ask questions about my experience, my equipment, pet photography and more. The project opened opportunities for me to write articles for popular photography blogs. I even licensed one photo of a dog to a large veterinary acquisition firm. This was all great, but the truth was that last year I failed to break even on my investment in the event and as much as I loved my product, it just wasn’t worth the amount of time I’d put into it, financially. Additionally, there were issues with lighting, with lines of people waiting to have their dog photographed, and with my delivery process.
For this year’s event, I opted to take the more traditional photo booth route — instant photo delivery. That meant buying a 4″x6″ photo printer (Epson PictureMate 225), and associated supplies. I opted to switch out the blue vinyl backdrop I used last year for a white cloth backdrop to create a clean white, headshot-like photograph. This simplified my lighting setup while maintaining a professional-looking image. The end result was a beautiful, take-home product at $10/photo or $15 for the photo and the digital file emailed after the event (with 10% of all sales going to a local animal shelter). Once again, I made my dog Red model the prototype:
Photographing your children as they grow and blossom into the young adults they will become is common to almost all parents. Some parents, however, like to think a little differently.
Commercial photographer Grace Chon is one of those people. With assistance from the family’s 7 year old rescue dog, Zoey, Grace created an adorable series of photographs of her young son, Jasper.
Guinnevere Shuster is a professional photographer and the social media coordinator at the Humane Society of Utah. Using her photography and media skills she helps otherwise often overlooked dogs find forever homes.
The photos depict each dog’s individual personality and show the dogs as they are outside of their kennels and metal bars at the shelter. Doing so gives potential adopters a glimpse at what they’ll be getting rather than what can be seen at the shelter itself.
The project seems to be going very well so far and the center reports high adoption rates among photographed dogs.
Let these sublime photos, taken by Fox Grom, serve as a testament as to why we should all get out and shoot during blue hour more often. Residing in Kirovsk (Murmansk Oblast, Russia), Grom took his Siberian Huskies out to a nearby lake. Though still safely frozen solid, the lake melted down marginally to produce a thin layer of water that blanketed the icy surface–just enough to give the appearance the dogs were walking on water.
Moreover, the soothing azure tones of the sky blend perfectly into the cold, blue lake and layer of fog that rests atop the surface. Consequently, the photos have an almost ethereal appearance. The dogs seem to be slightly curious about their new playground, but are clearly in their element as they frolic and play together on the frozen horizon.[Read More…]
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube and Facebook.
can change a lens mid-rappel, swap a memory card while treading water, or use a camel as a light stand.
To see more of his work please visit his studio website blurMEDIAphotography, or follow him on Twitter, 500px, Google Plus or YouTube.
JP’s photography is available for licensing at Stocksy United.
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