Dog Portrait Photo

[Sailorstu]

Freshly home from her first day of spring pamper and trim, I decided to try to get a portrait shot of our Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. After 1/2 bag of doggie treats, this is the best I could make. C & C most welcome.

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[Cantab]

I like your shot. As far as I can tell on my iPad, your dog's face is in tack sharp focus. Did you use flash or natural light from a window?

[rpcrowe]

I think that this is an excellent shot all around. The focus is dead on the eyes which are looking at the camera and have catchlights. The pose is relaxed and I love the position of the paws. You are at the dogs height (or rather, I suspect that the dog is elevated in a table of some type) which is pretty essential. Lighting is great! Nice grooming job also! You have ticked off all the boxes necessary for a really nice portrait.

[Sailorstu]

Thanks John, much appreciated.

[Sailorstu]

Thanks Bruce, I took this photo in my home's sun room where, during the afternoon, I have plenty of natural light.

[Sailorstu]

Richard - thanks very much. I know how expert you are in photographing your dogs, so your endorsement is very rewarding. I had Ceilidh up on a piano bench. I need to go out and buy some better materials for back drops as I used a piece of felt for the background and a black blanket on the piano bench! Thanks again.

[Mike Buckley]

In addition to everything already mentioned, it's a nice touch that the fabric on the tabletop is a blue tone that so nicely complements the scarf. My one nit pick is to consider digitally eliminating the distracting horizontal fold in the background fabric.

[rpcrowe]

There is a great advantage to photographing a light colored dog on black material - it doesn't reflect up onto the dog. Red material is the biggest culprit for reflections and I have just about stopped using it for my white dogs. However, I am very fond of using NIK Viveza control points on the areas of the dog colored by the reflection. Then I simply desaturate that area to one degree or another.

Velvet or velveteen is a good choice. I have lots of material that I "THOUGHT" would look in a portrait but doesn't. My wife will often make dog pillows from that material that I will not use again. Like this one that I though would look good as a St. Patrick's background for my March calendar image...

[Cantab]

There is a great advantage to photographing a light colored dog on black material - it doesn't reflect up onto the dog. Red material is the biggest culprit for reflections and I have just about stopped using it for my white dogs. However, I am very fond of using NIK Viveza control points on the areas of the dog colored by the reflection. Then I simply desaturate that area to one degree or another.

Velvet or velveteen is a good choice....

Richard, I'm hoping to do a portrait of our black cat. When I did adoption portraits of her kittens, I used a pinkish background material; it seemed to work okay for the black and other coloured kittens (Refugee Kittens ). Do you have any other thoughts for background material with black cats and dogs?

[Mike Buckley]

Bruce,

If you use a black tabletop or floor and black background for your black cat and if you light the scene to provide separation between the cat and background, you'll have the potential for a very dramatic photo.

[Cantab]

Bruce,

If use a black tabletop or floor and black background for your black cat and if you light the scene to provide separation between the cat and background, you'll have the potential for a very dramatic photo.

At the risk of hijacking Stu's thread.....

Mike, do you envisage obtaining separation from the background by lighting the cat and having no light on the background?

[Sailorstu]

No worries Bruce, I am following the background discussion closely as my sister has two black dogs and I know she will want me to photograph them in the future. I'm very interested in background choices for black pets.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, do you envisage obtaining separation from the background by lighting the cat and having no light on the background?

I'll preface everything by explaining that the most important characteristic of an image that we typically describe as a black subject on a black background is that, ironically, at least part of the subject is in tones of grey or even white tones while the background remains black. That's because of how our brain interprets the scene. This photo is an example, though it would be a better example if the red screw cap was not included in the scene.

One way to accomplish that is to prevent most or all light from falling on the background. If absolutely no light falls on the background, it will appear black regardless of the material's typical color even if the material is a bright white sheet. If a small amount of light falls on a dark background, the background itself could be an appealing characteristic of the image exactly for the same reasons that Stu's dark background is appealing. We might or might not call that black-on-black but it really doesn't matter what we call it so long as we like the photo.

Another way to make the scene appear as a black-on-black composition or at least nearly so is to ensure that at least part of the lighting setup lights the subject from behind or possibly the side in such a way that creates a rim light on the subject. Doing so separates the subject from the background. That light could be bright white (or not) and it can be virtually any color such as blue or red. Once that is done, you can then light the black subject however you want. This tutorial provides several examples of that kind of lighting.

Having said all of that, you may not want to have a black on black composition; you may want instead to have a black subject on a black background that is grey only where it is immediately behind the subject. The background can still appear dark where it is lit but it must appear lighter than the black subject in order to separate the subject from the background. You could easily make that happen by placing a light source behind the subject or in some way out of sight of the camera that lights only part of the background and none of the subject.

You can also use all sorts of combinations of the methods described above.

By the way, Stu's Terrier could be just as dramatically lit in exactly the opposite direction by making a white-on-white scene using a white tabletop and white background. Our brain interprets a light grey subject against a white background as white-on-white.

[Cantab]

Mike, many thanks for your comments. I've printed them for future use.

[rpcrowe]

Richard, I'm hoping to do a portrait of our black cat. When I did adoption portraits of her kittens, I used a pinkish background material; it seemed to work okay for the black and other coloured kittens (Refugee Kittens ). Do you have any other thoughts for background material with black cats and dogs?

Black animals are, to me, the most difficult to photograph. I like lighting that is glancing off the coat to show details.

Light backgrounds might be the first intuitive choice but, I don't really like a really light BG for a black animal. A medium blue (not dark like Navy blue) is always good. This is a royal blue, stretch Panne Velour (from fabric.com) which looks best when it is out of focus...



https://www.fabric.com/buy/uo-967/st...t-velour-royal

As far as the type of material, velvet or the less expensive velveteen or velour is nice but, can cause problems with reflections. Some velvets or velveteens are better than others. Fleece has the advantages of no reflection and the other advantage is that it is dirt cheap. The Panne does reflect but, I use a long lens when I shoot the dogs and it is easy to knock the BG OOF to make it look like a varied BG.

[Mike Buckley]

This Black Dogs Project was begun because the photographer was told that black dogs are the last to be adopted.

[Mike Buckley]

Some velvets or velveteens are better than others.

So true! I recently had a choice of two black velvets for use in my tabletop photography. One was super dense and more expensive than the other one. The very helpful clerk in the shop thought sure that I would prefer that one. I chose the less expensive one because it had less sheen and, thus, was less likely to reflect light falling on it.

[IzzieK]

Perfect shot, Stu! Trust Richard to really look at this one and if he makes a good review, you're home and hosed.

[rpcrowe]

I have a green Panne Velour that looks absolutely black under some lighting. This is fine for a white or lighter color dog but would be terrible for a black dog...



This is a rossette fabric made for baby pictures. I found it on eBay. The problem with this material is that the piece I work with is somewhat small, restricting its use to portraits of smaller dogs. However, IMO, this delicate looking fabric is very nice for puppies. It comes in several colors.



these are different pups from the same litter. They were five puppies and we called them cookie-cutter pups because they looked so much alike. I used different color backgrounds so I could tell the puppies apart by just looking at the image...



I also like this Rosette material as an OOF background for head shots...



I use a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens for my dog portraits and often shoot at maximum focal length. My normal exposure with my bounced flash and fill light is 1/60 second @ f/5.6 using a 160 or 200 ISO. I use a WhiBal card to ensure my white balance is correct and I always shoot in RAW, adjusting the white balance in ACR. I usually shoot with a 5D Mark-2 camera but will have no hesitation to grab my 7D if the 70-200mm lens happens to be on that camera.