Tips For Choosing The Best Light For Rescue Photography

One of the biggest areas I see foster pet parents struggling with is lighting.

Lighting can truly make or break an image of your shelter or foster pup.

Whether you are a volunteer at your local shelter or you foster pets in your home and you want to learn some lighting tips and techniques for better photos and videos, then stick around.

By the way, in case you like to watch instead of read, you can also watch the full video accompanying this blog post here.

Psst… love this post? Be sure to pin it for later!

Light Tips & Techniques For Rescue Photography
(or photographing your own foster pups!)

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OPEN SHADE

Okay, so first, when it comes to lighting, try to find open shade to take photos or videos.

Open shade is the easiest kind of light to work with, because you can find it pretty much all the time.

Open shade creates even light across the animal, so there are no harsh shadows and the animal really stands out. I also like open shade because it’s generally brighter than, say , an overcast day.

Open shade could look like your backyard in full shade at the beginning or end of the day, shade off the side of a large building, underneath some kind of shelter, or even underneath a deep swath of trees without a lot of dappled light.

The reason we call it open shade is because the dog is encapsulated in shade that is in a more open, not closed off area, otherwise, you’ll lose too much light.

The most important thing about open shade is just to make sure you have a big enough space that the animal can move around in and is fully covered in shade.

Otherwise, you’ll be struggling to keep them fully shaded and have a lot of weird looking lighting situations happening.

The other thing is to make sure the animal is facing the light source to make sure you are getting light in their eyes.

To see which part of the shade is the brightest and which side you should face, simply use your palm and wave it around to see where it’s brightest. That is the direction the animal should face.

UTILIZE OVERCAST OR CLOUDY DAYS FOR EVEN LIGHTING

Secondly, very similar to open shade is overcast light.

Overcast light is obviously going to be available on cloudy or rainy days, but is also tremendously flattering.

The benefit of overcast light versus open shade is that it’s entirely shading everything around you, so you don’t have to find an area to work in, you can simply walk outside and start taking photos.

Be careful though, because some overcast days are much darker than others, especially with storms, and can be a bit too dark for nice, bright, light photos unless you want to do some editing later on.

The last thing I will say about overcast light is to tip the adoptables face and head up just a little bit to ensure you’ve got catchlights in their eyes. We will talk a bit more about catchlights later on!

Because the light is coming from directly above on an overcast day, if they are looking down too far, you’ll lose the light in their eyes.

WHEN PHOTOGRAPHING INDOORs, PUT AN ANIMAL CLOSE TO A WINDOW OR DOOR WHERE POSSIBLe.

If you are photographing inside, but you aren’t near a light source, such as a window, your photos and videos are going to be pretty dark unless your home has a ton of natural light or you are using artificial lighting.

Simply placing the animal closer to a window or door will be helpful because the light is already filtered from the outside, creating nice even light across the animals and providing gorgeous catchlights in their eyes.

If you are planning on doing photos indoors, try to do so during the brighter part of the day, anywhere from about 10-2 when the sun is highest and brightest in the sky, so that all the light is coming inside to help you with photos.

ADJUST YOUR AUTO EXPOSURE ON YOUR PHONE

Fourth, if you need a bit of extra light, simply tap your focus box on your camera app.

That’s the little yellow box that shows up on your camera when you open it.

Simply slide up to increase exposure or slide down to decrease exposure.

This can help you adjust the light a bit more when taking photos of adoptables without being a professional photographer.

DON’T MISS OUT ON THOSE CATCHLIGHTS

Catchlights are those little rings of light we see on top of the dog's eyes.

These help their eyes to stand out and look really captivating.

Without them, their eyes can look dull, lifeless, and dark.

With any of these types of light I’ve shared, always, always look for the catchlights that will really help your foster or adoptable to truly stand out as eyes are one of the things potential pet parents really connect with.

So, I hope these quick few tips regarding lighting for rescue photography are helpful for you when photographing fosters or adoptables. If so, let me know in the comments or drop any follow up questions I can answer for you.

Tips For Choosing The Best Light For Rescue Photography

One of the biggest areas I see foster pet parents struggling with is lighting.