Dogtography. Kaylee Greer
be felt by your dog. Always focus on staying as calm, even, and positive as possible.
That means: No flying off the handle with excitement. (I’m looking at you Kaylee Greer.) No audible or visual frustration over not getting a shot or the arrival of an unwelcome swath of party-pooping black clouds rolling in to fill up the sky. No celebrations with confetti or party-popping streamer thingamajigs to commemorate the joy of the occasion.
You get the picture.
Here’s something you may or may not already know about dog photography: It’s hard. And some days are harder than others. It’s on those days where perhaps you’ve got a particularly difficult dog, or your planned shoot location falls through, or your favorite lens stops functioning, that you simply have to go with the flow, be patient, and keep your energy upbeat and positive. Your dog model will absolutely pick up on and react to your energy at a shoot.
If you have the perfect shot planned, but simply can’t get your dog model to sit where you need him to, stay patient. Take a breath, take a break, and try again. If it takes you 30 minutes to get the shot, then that’s what it takes. Under no circumstances should you let your frustration show. Be extra patient at your shoot knowing you can scream into a pillow as soon as you get home. Your calm, even, happy presence and energy are going to translate right into a comfortable, content, and relaxed dog model, making your job 67.455 times easier (mathematically speaking).
You can control your own energy, and that’s brilliant. But let’s talk wild cards. What about the dog’s owner? Or how about their entourage of three hundred thousand friends, family members, children, and the family gecko they insist on bringing along? Kidding about that last one. Kind of.
Oh boy. This is where the real struggle comes in. There is one thing that has astounded me over the years of working with dogs professionally, and it’s something that I still marvel at even to this day. Simply put, while the vast majority of people in the world own, love, and share their homes with dogs, only a very tiny percentage of them actually know anything about dogs.
I’m not saying this to be negative or condescending toward those people in any way, because they genuinely have good intentions and love their dogs as family. It’s just that the average dog owner rarely takes a step back to try and understand the world from their dog’s perspective. Most people have never read a book on dog behavior, taken a training class, or worked with multiple dogs in a meaningful capacity. While this lack of understanding is generally fine for the average owner’s day-to-day life, it can easily become a problem during your photo shoot.
The fact is, a good percentage of the dog owners that show up on your shoot day are going to be feeling lots of emotions. Excitement at such a fun and unique adventure with their dog. Nervousness or anxiety about their dog misbehaving or being able to perform for your lens (especially if they’ve invested a significant amount of money for the shoot). Frustration with their dog if they don’t immediately sit pretty and stay perfectly the first few times around. The task of managing stress and energy falls onto us, the psychiatrists photographers.
Each tiny individual emotion that the owner is experiencing can be felt deeply by the dog (even more intensely if the dog-owner bond is exceptionally strong). It can be like a wild rollercoaster ride for your dog model (and frankly, for everyone involved). And boy oh boy, it cannot be overstated how much you do not need the extra challenge of dealing with bad energy while trying to make gorgeous and impactful images of a subject who is supposed to look relaxed and happy.
Imagine the manic, wild ride of emotions the whole operation becomes when young children become involved in the day. Trust me when I say there’s a reason that all the information packets I send to my clients before we meet strongly and repeatedly suggest that maybe it’s not the greatest idea to bring children along for their photo-shoot day.
1.3
FIGURE 1.3 The candid, unscripted moments of “dogs being dogs” are the very best part of any photo shoot. Largely ignoring my presence and my camera, Petey was quite busy with a serious bout of playing and splashing in the cool ocean water when I managed to snag this shot. Petey carried on with his fun, none the wiser that he had just given me one of my single favorite photos of my entire career.
I’ve heard owners yell frantically at their dogs for not immediately obeying, or worse yet, physically push their dogs into sitting or laying positions in an effort to move the shoot along. I know that these people truly do mean well, and they think they’re doing it to help, but this is where I have to step in and make it clear that we will not be running the session in a force-based way. This type of behavior is considered negative reinforcement, and can quickly ruin any chances of your dog model behaving in front of the camera. In your dog’s brain, the camera will become associated with their owner’s negative emotions of frustration and anger. If things go down this path, you’re going to spend the majority of your shoot trying to reset that association, making it extremely difficult for you to create any photos worth talking about. One of your top priorities will be making sure things never get to this point.
All of this said, don’t always count owners out on the energy front. I’ve had some dog owners turn up to my shoots with incredible, zen-like energy that massages the entire day into perfection. In fact, I can remember with crystal clarity back to certain shoots simply because of the remarkable quality of energy of the dog owner. Even looking through past galleries and shoots as I unearth photos for this book, I can land on a single of a dog and tell you within milliseconds if their owner brought an ultra calm energy with them just based on the dog’s expression. While these types of owners are admittedly a bit more rare than their wilder, slightly more manically energetic counterparts, they do exist and the effect their presence can have on your shoot is quite tangible.
In order to help you spend more time shooting, and less time as a doggy/human psychologist, here are some tried and true tips to alleviate any negative, pressing, or just plain bad on-shoot energy:
This one is the first bullet point because it is by far the most important. (Is that how bullet points work?) Before you even come close to officially starting your shoot, communicate clearly with your client. Snatch all the question marks right out of the air the moment you meet them and confidently explain exactly how the whole process is going to work. Don’t forget, you are the expert in this situation. You need to kindly command control of the day from the very moment you meet your dog and client or you’re at risk of things spiraling out of control very quickly. Feel free to steal a line right out of my playbook by saying “There is zero pressure on your dog to “perform” for me today. He doesn’t have to do anything other than be a dog. That’s the absolute magic of it all anyway.” I find this statement immediately loosens my clients up. Any worries or anxieties about their dog’s potential inability to behave perfectly (let’s face it, that’s 99% of real dogs on planet Earth anyway) melt away. They almost all react the same—a nervous laugh and something along the lines of, “Oh my gosh, what a relief. I was so worried about that.” I can usually feel a tangible amount of tension dissipate into the air.
Owners love to have a job and to “help.” If there is something that you can assign them to do, you may find that the shoot goes a lot more smoothly. You might ask them to hold a reflector, or hold the dog’s leash up and out of the frame “just so,” in a way where you can successfully Photoshop it out later. If you don’t have an actual task for them to perform without them being entirely in the way, express appreciation for their willingness to lend a hand, but be clear that it’s best that they step back and let you do what you do best. Sometimes, making up a job for them if it’s genuinely not needed has the potential to turn into a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. So be clear and upfront about how they, the client, can best serve the shoot—whether that’s helping or just standing back and enjoying the ride.
Be conversational and always keep your client updated and involved in the process. I find it’s immensely helpful to the flow of the day and overall success of the shoot if I clearly and conversationally