Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Photo Tricks



Hi everyone, Katie here.

Thank you SO much for all the fun comments on the latest episode of The Real Housecats Of The Blogosphere!  We had a blast working with all of the kitties and their photos.  Glogirly has been secretly wanting another ::gasp:: cat, so this project, and my intense glare, is keeping that desire at bay.

We've already received some great submissions for the next cast line up!  As a result, many of your humans have asked for advise on photographing us kitties.  Of course it's nearly impossible to capture such beauty on a tiny little memory chip.  And I could go on and on, advising you on tactical avoidance techniques.  But let's throw them a bone, shall we?


The secret to successful flashy box performance is really quite simple.

1. Light
2. Light
3. Light

Did we say light?
Light is your friend.
It will make or break the photo.




OUTDOORS
When outside, avoid direct overhead sunlight.  Stick to shade or overcast days.  The prettiest and softest light is early in the morning, we call it First Light, and late in the afternoon.  The sun is lower on the horizon and a really gorgeous color.  What does this mean? We won't have harsh shadows under our eyes and chins.  The beautiful color of the light will enhance our eyes, furs and our surroundings.

INDOORS
When inside, try to avoid using flash.  Choose rooms with windows that let natural light in. Kitties, you don't want that light behind you though.  Have your human positioned with their back to the light source and the light filtering in towards you.

In this photo of me, there is a big sliding glass door just to my right and I'm looking towards it.  Don't try this at night. Keep it bright.





FLASH
If your human does use a flash,  they should take the photo at a slight angle to avoid the flash bouncing directly off your eyes.  This will cut down on laser-eye.

STILL
Tell you human to be very, very still.  When using natural light and shooting without a flash, it's even more important to hold the camera still.  They should be especially careful when they press the shoot button.  If they gently roll their finger over the button instead of pressing it, there is less chance of shaking the camera.  Even a slight shake will result in an out of focus image.

GET DOWN
Ok, I'm not talking about grooving to the music here.  Your human should get down to your level, not look down on you.  Truer words were never spoken!  Hardwood floors?  Kneepads.  It will give you something to MOL at. Notice that every one of my photos here is taken at MY eye level.  Not my human's. See what a difference it makes?


SUMMARY
All of my photos today were taken inside with natural light either late in the morning or early in the afternoon in rooms with lots of windows.  

Patience and lots of memory cards are key.  These shots don't just magically happen.  For each perfect photo, there are probably 50+ that we cast aside. I know, you thought ALL of my photos were perfect. Well, shhhhh... don't tell.




We have much more in our bag of tricks, but we'll save that for another lesson.  Let's keep it simple today.

Let there be LIGHT!











Pee S  If you've been living under a rock for the past couple of days and haven't seen the latest episode of Real Housecats, hurry up and click HERE.






28 comments:

  1. That doesn't leave much hope for TW. Our apartment isn't light at all. If she doesn't use the flash, the photo is too dark. Have I mentioned that we have a cheap little point and shoot camera. When I'm on my tree next to the window, she uses the other tree like a tripod but if I move a muscle, they still come out blurry. She wishes she still had her Olympus that she could change the settings on. I wish she did too.

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  2. Those are some great tips! Our mom has tried some of those...especially the getting down one.

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  3. My mommeh just sented in my audishun. Her pikshers are not as good as yours, Katie, but maybe a few will be decent enuff to gets me on to teh show. So hards to gets good halp these days...

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  4. Thanks fur the tips! We luf fur our Mommy to get on our level to take pics, we kitteh pile her!

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  5. Hey Katie,
    Great tips, mate. Hmmm.... I have two crazy pawpawrazzi and five cameras in this house. Eye level, tummy level, even my output port is not spared. Oh yeah...flash is no-no. purrr...meow!

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  6. Dear Katie,
    Even without the flash, me closes my eyes the exact second that Mommy and Daddy tries to take my picture! It is one of my Cat From hell tricks!
    BTW, we boughts a t-shirt and some magnets from the Zazzle store! Me was thinking of getting some dog shirts, me thought Kozmo could wear one, but maybe next payday.
    Kisses
    Nellie

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  7. Thank you for the photo tips. ~Scylla & Artemisia

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  8. wow! Talk about purrfect timing. Our blog post today (Wednesday) is about mom's frustration with getting a good picture of us. The bad thing is that we don't have a lot of natural light in our house because we don't have direct sunlight in any of our windows.

    Truffle and Brulee

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  9. Thank you for the tips. Our Mommy's looking forward to more tips on good pet photography. :)

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  10. Those are great tips - most of which I already knew *smug look* ;-)

    The problem is, of course, Austin. He will not pose in the correct position for more than one half of a nanosecond! *sigh*. lol

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  11. I don't know Katie, I think the magic in your photos is all due to your starlet self ;D

    Great tips! :D

    Got your promo post up over at PFT. You can see it at www(dot)petfictiontheater(dot)com
    Let me know if you would like me to change anything k?

    PFT Director,
    Roo

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  12. Thank you Katie for all those great tips. Those are great tips. M said she'll try to follow more of them as the shoots pictures. But some she can't do because of physical limitations, and our house doesn't get much light.

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  13. Such great tips on photographing us beloveds, Katie.

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  14. Wowzers what GREAT information on how to truly capture the fabulousity of our furry little selves! I'm printing this out and handing it to my Mom who needs all the help she can get! I've heard everywhere that the last episode of "Housecats" was really wonderful and it's nice to know lots of other cats are hopping on the video bandwagon. Woo Hoo!

    Kitty Hugs
    Sammy

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  15. Great tips there and I know they will help a lot of people.. Love your pics.. Hugs GJ xx

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  16. Thank you for these helpful tips.

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  17. Thanks to share this tips!!! Light is everything!

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  18. Great tips, Katie, you are so talented and lovely!...Happy Spring, precious girl...xoxo...Calle, Halle, Sukki

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  19. You are quite knowledgeable about such things Katie! The advice is much appreciated :)

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  20. thank you for those FANTASTIC tips!!!!!

    I guess using an Android phone for photos is out of the question, huh? lol. It actually sometimes does a great job!

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  21. Those are great tips Katie. We keep telling our mum to take photos of us for the audition, but she keeps forgetting to alter the camera setting. She takes all our blog photos on a low resolution because we have a slow broadband speed and blogger takes forever to load them if they are high resolution.

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  22. Me again :D

    Whipped up a widget to promote your show on my site as well. You can see it on my roosdoins site sidebar :)

    Hope you like it :)

    Waggin at ya,
    Roo

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  23. Great tips, Katie! We'll try to remember all of them when we're taking pictures of the PAWS cats. :)

    P.S. - thank you for sharing about PAWS "Senior Cat Sunday" on Facebook. You just never know who knows who, so it is MUCH appreciated. :)

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  24. Just viewed the latest episode.....Love it!

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  25. I made sure the Human read all this REAL GOOD but frankly I doubt her pea-brain will be able to absorb it. She's sort of FAIL when it comes to picture taking.

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  26. You need to take part in a contest for probably the greatest blogs on the web. I'll advocate this web site!

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