Animal/People Composition

[jmtonkin]

A good friend of mine wants me to take some pictures of her with her animals but I'm not sure how to compose with animals and humans. She has lots of different animals, including but not limited to llamas, dogs, goats and cows...

Does anyone know of a good book or website addressing this issue?

Thanks!

 

[chaosrealm93]

i suppose you can compose it like any other shot. try to leave some more room to crop in post.

 

[Overread]

Keep an eye on the shape of the animals head as well as your human model - if the intent is to show both then do your best to show both subjects clearly in the shot (for large animals remember that you'll probably need to get a good amount of your human model in the shot to show the full head, of say, a horse (minding not to cut the ears off).

Also try to treat it like a normal two person session - try to capture shots that show interaction between the two subjects with each other or which show some kind of association. In addition try not to get blinded by the human and treat the animal as the background part of the shot - this can work, but not in a case where your intent is to present both.

From there you've got other lesser points - eg using sounds or food/toys to draw the animals attention (remember for some its not just the eyes, but ear direction as well - eg horses you want ears pointing forward most of the time).

 

[jmtonkin]

Thanks for the advice! I've never done a two person session either so maybe I should read up on that too! This isn't going to happen for quite a while as I don't currently have my DSLR...but once I get it, I've got some practicing to do!