Project 52 - Week 36: People and Pets

While portrait photography has been my primary mode of operation over the past several years, I absolutely love taking candid or lifestyle photos of people and their pets.  I will sometimes go to the park with my camera and just sit and wait for the dog walkers to come along and snap some shots of interactions.

This week, our author points out that "great portraiture is about revelation, and you can't portray that until something about the subject has been revealed to you."  I wholeheartedly agree.  We do respond best to photos where there is recognizable emotion, whether at the human or animal level.

The other larger than life factoid shared by The Visual Toolbox on this subject is "choose your lens and the orientation of your frame based on the story you want to tell and the feelings you want to evoke..." and Duchemin goes on to say (and I could kiss him for this): "There's no place for what is proper or appropriate in art."

Here is my candid portrait for the week. I call it Waiting For The Wake Up.

What story am I trying to tell you?  What emotion are you reading?  I took this shot at various angles until the human subject forgot I was there, and the kitty never knew he was a part of a photo session.  Kids can be tougher than animals to photograph in many ways.  They have a wide range of emotion and big "theater" movements which you sometimes have to wait through until they change to smaller "television" movements or no movements at all, especially if you want a "quiet" photo.  (Remember patience?)

We took this show outside later, because ball-throwing is an essential part of our weekends here.  Kids love to throw balls as much as some dogs love to retrieve them.  Here are some samples of what happened outside.

I think the relationship between animal and tiny human is quite clear in these photos, as well as the relationship between animal and ball, don't you?  I created these images specifically for this week's blog post, but I have done quite a number of people/pet images over the course of the last several years.  Some of the sessions are associated with fundraisers for animal rescues or shelters.  Some are private sessions. In all cases, I try to observe the interactions of the pets with their people and wait for the moment when the relationship shines through.

To see more people and pets from a great group of photographers, start the blog circle this week with St. Cloud Minnesota based About A Dog Photography by Cahlean Klenke.