Pet Portraits

I enjoy taking photographs of pets. Using portrait photography techniques, you can capture such wonderful expressions in their eyes. I recently took a series of pet portrait photographs at home and thought I would share the results with you.

I wanted to focus on the eyes in particular, leaving much of the rest of the picture to the imagination. This worked well for the darker cats although the lighter coloured cats were obviously more clearly visible against the backdrop.

I was particularly pleased with this set of pictures as I did not use any specialist equipment but instead used things which I had to hand around the house. This included a combination of lights, a dark velvet sheet, and a distraction toy.

The camera was on a tripod and I used a cable shutter release to avoid camera shake. The shutter speed ranged from 1/125 to 1/250 seconds and the ISO remained fixed at 3200. By using an uplighter and a small torch I created all the light I wanted for the shots. Fortunately the subjects all sat still for long enough for me to take some sharp photographs.