The Other End of the Spectrum

     I normally photograph cats and kittens.  Over the last month or so I have become exceptionally accustomed to photographing cats because I have learned strategic techniques to capture catch lights, facial expressions, up close photo ranges, full body images, enhancing camera angles, and feline behavior.  However, this week I challenged myself to photograph at least one dog and one small critter, in this case, a guinea pig.  While attempting to capture these different animals I learned very quickly that photographing these animals was going to be very challenging. 
   

This is Dakota. She is a 2 year-old Siberian Husky.

   I initiated my photo adventure in the dog room.  Immediately, I thought to myself how I did not know any of the dogs within the shelter in terms or their personalities, kennel locations, and behaviors.  As an animal lover I know basic doggie behavior and can recognize various feelings by analyzing their ears, faces, and tails.  Unfortunately, I am not used to doggie voices, tones, and sounds. As a result, I remained hesitant to enter most of the dog kennels and only entered the cages with younger/smaller dogs or puppies.  My first challenge was getting the dogs to stay still and/or to stop jumping.  I was concerned I was not strong enough to protect myself or my camera if the dogs’ power dominated my own.   Next I learned the lighting within the dog room was darker and more artificial than the cat room.  Lastly, I felt as though being inside the dog kennel restricted my abilities to maneuver around in order to use great camera angles for my photos. 


Curious, the 4 month old guinea pig is always oh so curious.



     Next, I entered the small critter room where a couple of plump rats and cute guinea pigs cohabitated.  Inconveniently, I am deathly afraid of rats whether domestic or wild and therefore I stayed away from the rat cage. Instead I focused my attention on the guinea pigs neighboring the rats.  My first challenge was tackling the cage in order to open space to take a good photo without startling the critters.  Secondly, guinea pigs move and they move fast.  Thirdly, small critters also do not respond to calls or human sounds of nurturing like cats/dogs do, so this made it difficult to intrigue to small animals to look at the camera while capturing their catch lights. 

   

    Overall, I became acquainted with a female Husky named Dakota and a female guinea pig named Curious.  I learned photographing dogs would be most beneficial with a partner and outdoors in order to ensure a quality photo.  Also, carrying or bribing to doggies with a treat would help direct their attention toward my camera instead of my body movements.  For the smaller critters having an open space or cage would help increase my abilities to capture a good photo and having a partner/visitor/shelter volunteer would help control the guinea pigs’ movement.