Photo Tips for Animal Rescues and Shelters
by Christy Caplan
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January 22, 2016 
Iris is available at Animal Aid, Portland, Ore.
You may be a foster family that just invited a senior dog to live with you or you may be a volunteer at a local animal shelter helping post adoptable animals on your website and social channels.
Whatever the reason, you need to take “pin worthy” pictures of the animals ready for their forever homes and you’re feeling some pressure. According to popular blog, “Fresh Take On Content”, these pictures are in a sense a virtual “meet & greet” for these adoptable animals and images are the number one shared form of content across social media channels. Take some time and consider lighting, environment and don’t forget to PREP.
I’m a board member of Core Paws, and we’re constantly thinking about how to best promote our rescue and shelter partner’s hard-to-place animals. Since most of our animals tend to take longer to find forever homes for, pictures are vital. It’s the first visual interaction between potential adopter, and first impressions matter in the adoptable world of hard-to-place animals. So we asked local expert, Lindsay Hile of Sit, Stay, Pet Photography for some tips.
“A great photo can really help to adopt a pet much faster! Even if you feel inexperienced with your camera, here are a few tips that can improve the outcome of your pet photos greatly and increase the odds that they are noticed,” says Hile.
According to Hile, following are top ways to improve photos:
- First, make sure you have enough light by either shooting outdoors if possible, or placing the pet by a window. The light may seem good enough indoors to our eyes, but most point and shoot or phone cameras don’t agree and they will want to use flash unless there is a lot of natural light. The flash will not have the effect you want it to, and will make “green eye” happen– the equivalent to red eye in humans. Stick to natural light if at all possible.
- Get to the pet’s level! If you can get down on the ground and shoot directly in front of them instead of above them, the effect is much nicer, and it puts them at ease. Getting an animal to stare directly at the camera? Gold. Combine this with holding a treat right above the lens (use an assistant for this if you can) while you shoot
- For dogs, make weird noises or use a squeak toy to keep them interested and get a good expression on their face. For cats, use a dangly feather type toy above the lens, or something that makes crunchy sounds. Cats do appreciate a bit of hide and seek with toys, so turn this into a game! It’s it’s fun for the pets, then you are much more likely to get good shots.
There are many tools out there for improving the look of the photos before posting them on social media. Instagram has some great built in tools, and so does Facebook– sometimes a photo just needs a little brightness and contrast added to make it really sing. Don’t go too crazy on the filters though, they can be distracting.
Resources:
- www.sitstaypetphotography.com/@portlandpetphotographer (Instagram)
Walter: An honest pic of how long he is!
Wow, Walter is really long. Great photo tips – for the cat’s we always say to focus on the whiskers.
Thanks! What a great tips for folks working with cats – thank you!
Great photos help a lot! I totally fell in love with Mr. N’s petfinder photo.
I bet Mr. N’s Petfinder pic was ADORABLE!
Great post. Thing little guys need someone like to for them to find their forever home. Walter – great photo!
Thank you! He’s a silly munchkin for sure – these pics can help get animals out of shelters for sure.
Absolutely fabulous post – taking a great photo can often make the difference for an animal!
Thank you! Someone else commented that it can be a matter of life and death — that can certainly be the case…
Great tips! So important for rescues! Good work.
Thank you!
Fantastic post, I am a lousy photographer LOL so am always looking for posts and information how to better my pictures, thank you 🙂
Thank you! I’m grateful local photog was able to provide such great advice and easy tips we can all use!
Great tips and so important for adoptions. It is especially true for black cats – they need a nice light background, like a baby blue colored blanket, to make sure they really stand out in the picture. Purrs from Deb and the Zee/Zoey kitties
Thanks so much! Oh that’s a great suggestion – we have a local shelter here called Cat Adoption Team (CAT) and they have some best practices as well I should link too in this post, thanks for this!
Great tips, we are always looking for ways to improve our shots!
Thanks so much! We are too – and I’m just getting the scoop on all the ways to improve pics of the pack!
Great photos and tips! I’m always looking to learn more about how to take better pictures! 🙂
Thank you! This local photog is awesome and I’m so grateful she provided these great tips.
Wonderful tips! Good photos can make such a difference to help someone find the right pet. Sometimes a photo is what makes the difference between life and death for some animals.
Thanks! All they need is a good photo – I know that’s what’s driven me to local shelters to adopt so it can be a matter of life or death for sure.
These are some great tips! I always try to get down onto my cats’ level when I’m taking photos of them. PicMonkey has some great features you can use to brighten and clarify photos, too.
Thanks! I like PicMonkey too – I’m going to re-visit PicMonkey and start playing around with the features – awesome suggestions.
[…] Photo Tips for Animal Rescues and Shelters […]
Thanks!
I agree, good photos do make a big difference! I think another tip I would offer is that if you must work in place or a time when natural light isn’t available, bring in several flood lights and use light bulbs that give off as white of a light as possible. Yellow bulbs (which is what most fluorescent and regular light bulbs are) can make everything look dirty.
Thanks! That’s awesome advice- and easy to execute in some of these environments where the lighting isn’t great – it’s so *dark* here too as it rains a bunch which is terrible as a back drop…
Great tips, and great photos! It can be challenging to take photos in shelters, I have done it before with both cats and dogs.
Thanks! The circumstances and backdrop of some shelters makes it tough to take good pics – I agree, hopefully these will provide some ideas for folks.
Those are wonderful photo tips. A great photo can make all the difference in creating interest for an adoptable pet.
Thank you! You have wonderful pics of your two – taking stellar pics is not easy!
So true what a difference an image can make. Pets are quite hard to photograph so great to share tips as so much more appealing.
Thanks! My animals are so busy so taking good shots is challenging for sure.
I am a terrible photographer! This helps a bunch, both for home pictures of the Chihuahua and working with local shelters! Thanks so much!
Oh good! I hope these tips from Lindsay are helpful!
Great photo tips!
Thank you! Lindsay is an awesome photog!
Awesome tips! Great photos are important 🙂
Thanks! All the volunteers I know at shelters always need help with pics – it’s so hard to capture that perfect image – for all of us!
Great tips!
Thanks so much!
It is so true that, for many people the decision to adopt is ‘love at first sight.’ I volunteer at my local shelter taking profile photos of the cats. Some situations are definitely a challenge. Great post!
Thanks! That’s so awesome you take pics to help out your local shelter – I think taking cat pics are harder than dogs… hope these tips were helpful!
Great tips! I have very little natural light in my house and have difficulty getting good photos of Truffle and Brulee.
Thank you! Natural light totally makes a difference. Our house is so dark…
Man so important for shelters to take a good picture!
Thanks! Lindsay provided some solid tips which I’ll be using!
That is one long dog, LOL! Quality photos are so important to attracting adopters, it can’t be stressed enough. Thanks for posting!
Thanks! He takes up like half the bed 🙂 Hopefully these tips will help folks!
You’re so right, it’s really important to get great pics of shelter dogs when you promote them. I just took photos of 2 dogs at the shelter this weekend. It’s so difficult to get a good shot, many of them won’t stay still for any length of time, probably because they’re so stressed. I get the best shots when I have someone helping me. Doing a photo collage of one dog and putting a border around photos when you post them makes the photos pop.
Love & Biscuits,
Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them
Thanks! They’re so stressed and the environment isn’t ideal either – I try to take them out in the yard where they potty to get something decent but it’s really tough. A photo collage is great advice! I need to show a few groups PicMonkey too. Thanks for your suggestion.
Such helpful info for Shelters, I’ll definitely be sharing this.
Thanks
Annette
Thank you! I’m hoping I can tailor more posts for shelter volunteers since so many of us dedicate our time with rescue groups.
Great tips! The challenge for me is getting on Rooney’s level since he is a Corgi and so low to the ground lol
Thanks! My guys are also super low to the ground so getting on their level typically means getting on the floor!