TRAINING TIP TUESDAY: Training doesnt always have to be about manners or behavior modification. Sometimes, it can help make certain non-essential activities a little easier. Like taking adorable photos of your dog. Here are some tips for getting your dog more comfortable with the camera, so you can get great shots again. 1. Turn off the flash. PLEASE, for dogs sake, no flash. Unless you have the type of flash which allows you to bounce the light off a surface other than your dogs face, just turn it off. Natural light produces better photos, anyway. 2. Take a little time to change your dogs association to the camera. Bring the camera to your face (as if youre about to take a photo), then immediately mark - I use yes here, since its hard to hold a camera and a clicker - and reward. Camera in front of my face = treat for you. Repeat until you can hold your camera to your face without your dog showing signs of avoidance...then repeat some more until your dog is perking up at the opportunity to earn another reward. You can also use the focus beep as a marker. Beep = treat. Beep = treat. Beep = treat. A little time on this exercise will produce a dog who looks up in anticipation when they hear the beep, which makes for a nice, happy face in the photo. For some dogs, Ive had to break this down even more. Like, if you just look at the camera in my hand without running out of the room, Ill mark/reward. During this stage, youre not taking photos at all, just helping your dog form a positive association to the camera. Eventually, I build up to marking and rewarding after shooting, starting with one shot, then multiple shots. Rewarding the dogs for holding still and generally putting up with the crazy lady behind the lens. Long photo sessions are dull and, inevitably, end up with a pretty low rate of reward for the dogs as we get caught up in the excitement of all the great shots were getting. I frequently have to remind myself that it is far more fun for me than for Parker and I need to keep those rewards coming! Here are some other tips Ive found helpful: Experiment. With digital photos, you can play around with the camera at different angles and distances. Some of my favorite photos were those which I shot by holding the camera away from my face and just shot randomly. Take more than one frame at a time. Dogs have a lot of moving parts on their face - ears, eyes, tongue. You can have a technically perfect shot ruined by a weird eye/tongue/ear combination. Even my smartphone lets me take a series of rapid-fire shots. Even if a dog is holding still, ready for his close-up, I still take multiple shots to make sure I dont have closed eyes in all my pictures. Get down to the dogs level. I love to hold the camera down at the dogs nose level and just start shooting. Sometimes you get some great stuff that way! There are countless websites that will teach you about lighting, camera settings, and more. But these are a few tips that might help you really capture your dogs personality.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 17:45:00 +0000
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