A Good Pet Portrait ...

Starts with a good photograph.
Sometimes our clients can get invested in the emotional quality of a photo and not really know if it is indeed a good photo to work from. I have on many occasions had people send me fun special photos of their pups taken on a really special day that are etched in their memories. While these may be great memories they do not always make for the perfect portrait if taken too far away, or if other negatives are present like low resolution or a lack of crisp detail. Sometimes too it is just very hard to know which shot will work best.

See Sable the Cocker Spaniel below as an example:

Comparing these 2 shots you might be tempted to say well obviously the best photo is on the right, Sable looks happy, she is smiling, there is bright light and you can see the coat texture. The reality is that the photo on the left is far superior. To start with this pretty girl has her own eyes on the left. The image on the right required me to create and make up some eyes based on my own imagination. The image on the left also had a lot more detail when blown up.

Because this was a memorial project I chose to waive our fee for starting over from scratch with a new photo and asked Sable's Mom to send additional photos. I will post both artworks below so you can see the difference. Keep in mind I am still tweaking Sable #2 and will be finalizing this artwork soon.

Sable #2 from new photograph ( below)
In this piece I added a sofa her brother is leaning on in his portrait.

Sable #1 from original photo submission ( below)

Check out our Photo Tips Page to see a few suggestions on taking good pet snapshots.