You are here: Technique > Composition and Posing > Posing Dogs

Posing Dogs

Once your handler is ready to start posing the dog for you, find a suitable area for your photograph. If you are outside, try to find a spot with natural, even lighting. If it is an overcast day just about anywhere will be ok. If it is a bright sunny day and the sun is high in the sky, you should try to look for some shade such as a under a big tree. This will help to ensure that the lighting for the animal is consistent and even.

The area behind the animal should serve as a pleasant backdrop. A group of trees, bushes, flowers, or a grass-covered hill makes a good background. Try not to place the animal directly in front of the background, leave 8 feet or more if you can between the animal and the background. This and your exposure settings will help to ensure that your background is pleasingly out of focus which helps to highlight your subject.

Our favorite backgrounds include green trees and a grass covered hill set as far as possible behind the subject. The trees or grass end up as a soft blur of color that looks really attractive. We always prefer to use a natural background as a opposed to a brick or cement wall.

After you find an area, look at it through your viewfinder quickly to make sure there are no distracting elements in the frame such as sticks pointing out of the ground, telephone poles, wires, and so on that will distract from your subject.

When you are happy with your background and lighting, have your handler bring the animal over and try to place the animal into a sitting stance. Some shelter animals will know the sit command and respond, others will not. If not, have your handler kneel or sit on the ground off to one side of the animal and gently urge the animal to sit by pushing their rear end down. If they won't sit, as long as your handler can get the animal to stand somewhat still that is ok too.

Your handler will most likely need to be in constant communication with the dog to keep it calm and in one spot. Sometime you will be successful in getting the animal to sit or stand your first time, other times it will take longer. Usually the dog will eventually figure out what you want and cooperate to some degree.

It is important that you try to keep your handler and parts of your handler out of the frame at all times. We usually take fairly tight portraits of dogs so that even if my handler is petting the dog's back my handler's hand won't appear in the final image.

Once you get the dog to stay still for you, you will need to decide if you want to take a full length or portrait photograph.

<- Back