This is not intended as a technical guide, but only the collection of some helpful tips to ensure that everyone can improve photos of his beloved labrador.
If you are reading this article, most likely – you were not satisfied with the picture that until now, you have taken of your puppy!
To start, you should know that the photograph wildlife (and a picture of a labrador for many aspects of affinity can be so classified) is one of the types of nature photography more “technically” difficult. To take a good picture of any animal, you need many technical skills, you also need to know the subject well (our lab) – and the equipment that you have. You should know that “behind” a nice picture of a labrador there is certainly a lot of knowledge and probably a good investment in photographic equipment.
The speech of the equipment is very important: you can afford a cell phone to photograph your pet when it is posing, still as a model of Botticelli (very infrequent event especially when it comes to puppies). The shutter speeds are always very fast with labrador moving, never below 1/125 if you do not want to see trails of blur (a Labrador running requires easily times thousandth features that only an SLR, or otherwise semipro machines we can guarantee).
We are optimistic: by following a few specific tips you can obtain acceptable photos of your dog, with your smartphone you’ll easily in your pocket. This, for example, is a picture of a puppy Maya – taken with a Nokia N900.
SETTING
It seems trivial, but remember that to make a good portrait, beyond the subject must be good also the setting. As the first rule we try to imagine the picture before take the photo. With the advent of digital has been lost this good habit … I think that 90% of the success of a shot depends essentially on this.
A labrador sea will be different from a Labrador retriever in an apartment, but equally we can get some good shots from both of these environments, depends only on us.
A rule of my own … I do not ever shoot a free labrador with collar (or worse bib!) Always seeks a peaceful environment where you can move freely in a safe and free him completely! If the environment is not adequate to free up your labrador, ask someone to take a picture together (or use the self-timer), it will be a great memory!
COMPOSITION
To achieve a good picture of a labrador need to remember some basic rules of composition. Although it is preferable and it is always a good idea to “fill the frame”, but we must avoid too tight compositions in which the subject does not seem to have the “room for movement.” In particular it is necessary to leave the field empty area in front of the subject to create a nice composition, well balanced (as a general rule, we try to focus our dog’s head in the central point of our photos).
Center the nose of the labrador will also help us to get a good focus!
Learned and applied this rule, you can venture out to the diagram to find creative solutions different (but this is only after we do that we will be masters of the rule, that is when we will automatically frame by hand, our lab).
LABRADOR MUST TURNED TO
Another simple rule that we have to make our own, is to photograph when the subject is facing or is heading towards us, or at least when it is parallel to the camera. Avoid to photograph our lab if he moves away from us, more often than not, the resulting shot will give the idea of a prey in “escape.”
As above, the rules are made to be broken: in this photo I enjoyed resume “Fuoco” jumping away fast, I think the positive energy compensation at large the fact that he’s turned back!
SHOT (ANGLE CAMERA)
One of the most common mistakes of those who have recently approached the photography is taking pictures of animals or children standing, that man from a height (160-180 cm). The photos that have made the prospect of “top-down” and in most cases a very amateur (or Myspace .. ah Ah).
If you want to improve your pictures, you have to be height as your lab: the camera should be at the same eye level, or even lower.
It ‘s good to know that the photos taken at the same eye level of the person whose outlook is very natural, you can have fun experimenting with it. Shoot from a low angle of view makes it easier to get the optical effect of a nicely blurred background (great for a portrait of our labrador).
In addition to the above we can easily see that the angle of the bottom makes it easier to photograph our dog: a man standing scares most animals, but if you’re crouching or lying on the ground the subject will be more natural and ‘ll turn to us in a more spontaneous.
You can also enjoy shooting some pictures holding the camera at ground level: you can get really strange images, even if it’s uncomfortable looking through the viewfinder and compose the image.
To put a labrador is very convenient to have an angle finder that we can loosen and direct as we prefer. The swiveling screen is also convenient to increase the possibility that our lab we look at it while we are photographing (taking for example the camera height of the carrier of the bites).
Today I have revealed too many of my tricks … now you go out with your beloved labrador for a walk and try to photograph it!
