Everyone loves dog photographs. After all, these furry and fun-loving animals are absolutely adorable. Bruce Weber Photographer and other professionals try to capture their four-legged subjects in a manner that reflects their expressiveness and playfulness. Their dog photographs usually brim with intimacy and a sense of humor. Bruce Weber has been photographing his dogs for years. His enduring affinity for canines prevails in his book ‘Bear Pond and Gentle Giants: A Book of Newfoundlands’. He even penned a photo essay the cover story for the December 2016 issue of Vogue Italia.
Dog photography is a popular genre that attracts many. While capturing dogs while they are running about and playing can help you to take extremely cute and enchanting images, one needs proper planning and understanding of photography techniques to do so. Firstly, the photographer has to find a place where the dog can play around freely. If they do not have a personal backyard that is expansive enough for the purpose, taking the dog to parks, coastal locations or woodlands will be a good idea.
Ensuring that the subject is in focus is the trickiest part of photographing dogs. Honing this technique will take a lot of practice and experimentation. Today there are cameras available with tracking-focus features that can make this task a lot easier. Focus tracking basically means that the camera shall identify the moving subject and continuously shift its focus to keep the subject sharp, regardless of where it moves in the frame. In most cases, the focus tracking feature is used by wildlife and sports photographers. Using the back button focusing feature can also be quite helpful in dog photography. By activating this feature, one would use their index finger for the shutter and thumb for focusing, to do away with the risk of accidentally losing focus when trying to depress the shutter button.
One of the key aspects of taking pictures of dogs is to get down to their level. This will help draw the viewers into the world of the dog, and see the world as they do. Doing so can create a level of intimacy in the image and make it more interesting. Using a wide-open aperture to give the image a three-dimensional feel would also be a smart move for photographers to enhance the impact of the photo. A shallow depth of field can also aid in creating a visual distinction between the foreground and the background, especially when tones and shades in both areas are relatively monochromatic. While aperture is surely important, the central concern of the photographer must be to make sure that the action is sharp and nice, and hence try to achieve fast shutter speeds. This will not be an issue when shooting in a location with natural light. However, in case the shutter settings or aperture has to be sacrificed due to low light, one must try to increase their ISO first. Going through the works of Bruce Weber Photographer can help people to better understand the right approaches to take while photographing dogs.
