i'm pretty sure that it is extremely obvious just by what i'm wearing that i am freezing cold
so i do apologize for my clothing choices today this video is all about how to photograph people
and their pets together and i'm going to refer in this video to quite a lot of other videos
that are on the youtube channel so get ready to go ahead and open links in new tabs
that are coming up or just head down to the description below because i'll link all of the
videos that kind of work together on this topic down below without further ado let's get stuck in
this type of family portrait is pretty similar to photographing
family portraits as it were with just humans together because a lot of the
principles are the same however you cannot tell a dog to look in a certain direction or
angle their body in a certain direction or do a particular action in most cases so i want to fill
this video with actionable tips that can improve your people and pet photographs hopefully without
that much effort so first things first you need to make sure that you can take a good portrait
so there is a video on the youtube channel which is all about how to take a good portrait
that is definitely still relevant for this situation so i'll go ahead and link that above
it's quite an old video but it'll walk you through the process in terms of the settings and stuff
that we use here so that video is worth a look if you know how to take a portrait then awesome you
kind of like most of the way there really in terms of getting to the end of this project that you've
set yourself but the next thing that you're going to need to do is understand depth of field and how
to photograph multiple subjects and keep them all in focus in one image now there is a video
on that i'll put that above so that you guys can go ahead and access that quite easily
that video will talk you through the different theory parts and settings involved in taking
photographs of multiple subjects and there is also some basic maths to work out what aperture
to set your camera at so that's in that video in terms of and away from taking the actual
photograph there are a few things that make people and pets photographs work and that make them not
work in terms of what you want to be looking for and what we're going to cover in this video is
the actual posing side of things and it doesn't have to be posed you can still take really nice
pets and people pictures that aren't posed so candid images but they are made better
by some tiny little bits that you can tell your clients so the first thing that i want to cover
off here if you're photographing people and their pets together whether that's regularly or as a
one-off is to guide your clients the human part of this image to be on the same line as the subject's
eye so that is probably the single biggest thing is something i tell all of my clients if we're
in a situation where we're photographing them and their pets together is i very quickly and
very briefly explain focal points and focal planes so what i say is i'm going to be focusing on the
dog's eyes or your eyes and there's going to be a really small strip of in focus area in that image
so what i need from you subject in this situation is to try and line yourself up so your head is
on or around that same focal plane that line that gap of focus that the subject's eyes are on so and
then i do a couple of examples so for example if the dog's head was wherever it might be then just
lean slightly forwards or you know push yourself slightly backwards and what that will do that
will help me basically to catch this image in one shot instead of having to reset up and go again
and so what we need to try and do is wherever the dogs put their head
try to put your eye on the same line as their eyes in
and what i find with just that small little bit of conversation is that you end up kind
of eliminating any and all issues that you're going to have with focus it doesn't work all
the time and sometimes the client is going to forget or you know get distracted or the
dog's going to move abruptly or whatever the situation might be but 9 times out of 10 they
really do take that advice on board because they're in it to get a good picture just as
much as you are so they're gonna do what they can to help you and so that little bit of advice
often does help so that is tip number one tip number two is all about the actual posing and
stuff happening now this is where you as a photographer assists with directing stuff so
tip number two is to ask the owner the subject the human in this situation to angle their body
slightly towards you and what i mean by that is if they're interacting with their dog or
horse or whatever it might be don't close off your body to me as the camera if i'm over there
with your body try and have it a little bit angled towards the camera
so this is something that comes from kind of like acting stage school it comes from drama class back
at school it's to try and keep your body slightly open to the camera so for example right now
i'm kind of straight at the camera here if i'm close to the cam or if i'm closed to the camera
i would be kind of facing like this and so this kind of like it's closed off so you want to be
open it doesn't mean that you have to be this open just kind of a little bit open so that you can see
the kind of you know facial expression and stuff and on that point just as an extra top
tip if you're photographing females with long hair try and have them put their hair over the
ear at closest to the camera or at least pull that little bit of hair backwards somewhere so
that the hair is not over the face and hides the facial expression that makes a really big
difference to the success of the end image can you put your hair behind your ear at this side super
so that is tip number two keep the subject open to the camera where possible an extra sub tip
is to have the subject interact with the animal that's in the image with the far arm so the far
arm does the interacting unless you're making a specific point about what's happening in the
image in that moment of interaction in which case the hand closest to the camera is actually
going to help you out even more so i'll pop in some examples of all of this kind of stuff in
action but i hope that it's helpful so tip number three is all to do with the points of connection
so the october challenge for the monthly challenge was about connection and i'll put the video to
that review linked above now that is important for this moment because you'll notice that the
winning images had this happening in every single one so what all of these images have in common
is that they've got at least two points of connection in the shot so these two points of
connection really do make or break pets and people images and the main thing that i can advise for
this is that the connection can be literal so it can be physical contact physical connection or it
can be kind of implied connection in terms of eye contact but either way there should be at least
two points of connection between the people and the pet in the image i'll show you an example
of an image that is kind of like a posed portrait in terms of just you know a person sat with their
animal and in this instance you want to be looking for two points of connection that don't include me
as the photographer so the pet ideally should be either looking straight at the subject the human
or straight at the camera either or but the human ideally should have two points of connection with
that subject and you'll find that if there is only one point of connection with the subject
the image loses its impact it loses the feeling of togetherness that will come from the scene
that you're setting up if the subjects are looking at each other then that is one part of connection
because that point of connection that you've got from eye contact is more implied but it still
counts as a point of connection so then you need another point of connection and that secondary
point of connection will bring the image together okay so the main thing to take away from this step
is to just try and get two points of connection and be creative with how you're going to achieve
that depending on if their subjects are looking at you as the photographer or if they're looking at
each other the final point in my people and pets advice but also just pets and pets multiples of
anything is to try as best as you possibly can to make sure that all of the subjects overlap
with each other so what i mean by that is try not to have a gap between the subjects and what
i'm going to do is i'm going to run an edit of an image where we've got two dogs sat together
and i'm going to basically remove the gap that was between them quite a simple straightforward
edit to do but what that does is it gives that feeling of togetherness because you have that
point of connection so try to remove visible gaps that separate pets and people and pets and pets if
you're doing multiples together or just families if you know if you're just a portrait photographer
try and eliminate those gaps between the subjects or if you've got one that has a gap but another
set and the other side of the image doesn't make sure you close that gap because it's going to be
really obvious the only time i would recommend leaving a gap is if you're doing something
like a silhouette shot or if you are you know deliberately highlighting the shape of the gap
then definitely go ahead and leave a gap but other than that try and remove gaps wherever possible
because it will just bring the image together a little bit more so i mean it's pretty much all
of those elements put together and you'll end up with an amazing people and pets shot to be
honest don't forget you can enter people and pets images into the tog awards where the grand prize
is 500 dollars to the winner so that is something that you could potentially consider doing
if not just put it onto instagram and tag us in it and i'd love to see it so
go and have fun photographing people and pets and if anybody would like to photograph me and my pets
then i'm actively looking for a photographer to shoot us next year that is me and my horse
and also me and my dogs so yeah that would be like a fun adventure wouldn't it okay right
well that's it hope you're all safe and well and i'll see you all again really really soon