Animal portraits

Pets and animals in general are fun to photograph. It's more challenging than adults, who you can art-direct, but in many ways easier than children (whose spontaneity leads to something more akin to sports photography). Like most portraits, I concentrate on capturing what the faces are saying. A fraction of a second makes all the difference...

Monkey running free at the Taj Mahal - though from the looks of it, he's not exactly enjoying all the tourists...

Who could resist Lily's invitation to play "toss-the-squishy"?

In one of my random moments of whimsy, wondering what a Corgi cameo might look like. Sarah, herself, would most likely have not approved...

Even photos that don't quite turn out, because of messy backgrounds, can sometimes be rescued with some careful Photoshop editing. For example I loved the expression on Sarah's face, but dog-gone it (pun intended), the dining room chair was just a pesky nuisance:

 

So I removed the background and placed her in a "studio backdrop" with plenty of blank-space, perhaps for a future greeting card or poster:

If you have a favorite pet/animal portrait, feel free to post a comment with a link!

- Jim