As St. Patrick's Day is just around the corner, it's got me thinking about being lucky. I do consider myself to be pretty lucky; I've been married to a wonderful man for over 20 years, we're healthy, have great friends and a lovable furry pack that we adore. I was lucky to be able to retire from my corporate career eight years ago and pursue my love of photography full time, opening Penny Whistle Photography with a studio in Carrollton, Texas in 2015.
As a pet photographer I'm lucky that I get to share in the love of client pets as well and a lot of times that means PUPPIES! It's pretty hard to take a bad picture of a puppy, they're just so darn cute, but it was the creatively of my newborn photographer friend, Cyndi Williams Photography, that got me thinking about doing something more with the young puppies that I see in my studio and once I got started, I was hooked.
A Lucky Perk Of Being A Pet Photographer Is Getting To Photograph Young Puppies
I started taking newborn portraits of puppies and kittens a few years ago and it's been a learning curve for sure. Cyndi gave generously of her time to help get started (thank you Cyndi!) and the rest has been a bit of trial and error. I figured out what worked and what didn't (and have the photos to show for it!).
First of all, I had to learn how to swaddle (note: some puppies resists this procedure, Belgian Malinoises and Border Collies come to mind), next I had to learn how to coax the little rascals into going to sleep (that's a secret recipe!), then there was the lighting, and retouching techniques used for newborn portraits and lastly I had let go and work the unique angles necessary for newborn photography as it's quite different from what I normally do in a standard pet portrait photo shoot. I think I've finally hit the sweet spot with all of the above and have now started to bring more variety and creativity into my images.
