Just throw the ball, human

[lovelife65]

Our girl River. Her one leg is blown out from sun shining on it, so a little distracting. Should work more on it, if worth it.

Throw the ball human! by sharonkay finley, on Flickr

[Donald]

I think for pet photos, particularly portraits, you have to get down to their level. I think this would be a much better image if the camera was at the level of her eyes.

[lovelife65]

I think for pet photos, particularly portraits, you have to get down to their level. I think this would be a much better image if the camera was at the level of her eyes.

You are absolutely correct donald thank you.
A more intentional take would have been better.
Part of the struggle is they are also moving and on the go they don’t pose enough
And when I get on the ground, which is often, I end up with three or four of them crawling all over me. 🤣

[rpcrowe]

Agree 100% about shooting level with a dog's eyes. However, I have leg and back problems - so getting down to a dog's eye level is difficult for me. When Sony came out with Animal Eye-AF combined with a tilting LCD on the A6600 or A7iii, it really helped me. I can hold the camera lower and view the LCD without bending over or squatting down and when I see the green box over the dog's eye, I know that I have the focus nailed.

Also, shooting with my 28-75mm f/2.8 Tamron on the Sony cameras also makes it a bit easier to shoot dogs. It focuses down o really close...

[Dave Humphries]

And when I get on the ground, which is often, I end up with three or four of them crawling all over me. 🤣

Yup, that's the problem in a nutshell Sharon.

It's almost impossible for a dog's owner to take a portrait of their own dogs unless exceptionally well trained (both dog and owner!)

The lighting has done you no favours, but that's also par for the course if we attempt to grab a shot while out walking our pets.

Richard's suggestion may help, if your camera has that tilting viewfinder or LCD screen 'trick', I now use a small P&S with tilting LCD for most photography.
My DSLR hasn't had much use for 2-3 years as my photographic priorities have changed and I anticipate it will only come out if I'm set on shooting something that needs the attributes it has, be that for multi-flash use or long lenses for aircraft or birds, etc.

Frankly I've determined (over the years) that, unless you get really lucky, great photos (of any subject) only result from single-minded application to the process of shooting - with skills honed over months of experience.

However, this is not said to discourage shooting 'on-the-go', we all like to see nice shots of cute animals (and River is cute) and I enjoyed seeing River. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that in seeing your photo and writing this reply, you Sharon, have inspired me to try to capture more lucky/cute shots while exercising our pooches.

Back to this shot and PP, if mine, I'd crop the LHS to remove all but River's ear, clone out a few attention-grabbing bits of detritus and blur some of that left between her paws, being careful not to lose sharpness on her whiskers. I would try to do something with the highlights, but care is needed to avoid being 'unsubtle' and ending up with a grey area which our brain knows should be the brightest part of the image (but now isn't) - which just looks wrong.

Cheers,
Dave

[DanK]

Photographing pets is a bit like photographing flowers: If you shoot from standing height in a regular setting, you often will end up with a shot that looks like a snapshot someone took when walking by. The challenge is to make the view unusual in some way. Getting down to the dog's level--or even lower (you have big dogs) is one way to do that.

I photograph a lot of flowers, and this is a constant challenge. I'm always hunting for some way to provide a view that is different from what one would get walking by. This might be a different viewpoint (say, from the side or back), getting very close, using backlighting, or other things. Often I can't think of something before the flower wilts...

[lovelife65]

Thank you all for the wonderful and helpful feedback and suggestions.
Unfortunately, often when in our big field with these clowns, too many shots are indeed snapshots.
I probably need to work on being able to be on the ground and shooting more intentionally. And with my fuji vs my phone.
So many great opportunities to take some really good photos of these guys.
Will help in skill development as well.

Sharon

[rpcrowe]

Each dog seems to have its own attributes when it comes to photographing them. Serena's greatest attribute is that for a puppy, she is quite calm and serene (thus her name). She sits still for her portrait and I can grab any number of shots of her sitting or lying down. Since she is a rather tall dog, it is easy to get on level with her eyes...