John,
Julie has gone through -- over the past year or so -- all the things that we all have or are going through. And her results are truly awesome.

So, listen to what she says!!!!

She also knows how to light small environments -- her RV -- and larger environments like your studio. So her tips are especially relevant.

My only suggestion is this: don't get too complicated. Light the animals evenly and make post-processing as simple as possible. You will appreciate the results and so will your clients.

Using studio strobes isn't all that difficult -- heck, if I can do it . . . well you know. But I don't try to do anything all that sophisticated with my lighting. I do very different stuff with people. But with animals, I keep in simple because people want to see the pet. Not the lighting effect.

Jim

I have made every mistake over and over and studied what people do that I like. I still kinda hold my breath with strobes. I have a mental block with them.

A friend of mine who lights beautifully(he has a portrait he did hanging in the smithsonian) looked at me when I asked him about a pretty complicated lighting pattern, and said "Keep it simple stupid". Basically, I was way overthinking my lighting. For a 3 day pet shoot(yes, it was 3 days of chock full shooting!) I had a main light right in front of the camera and then background lights as needed. That is how simple it was.

Don't try to make it too hard.

Thanks Julie and Jim for all the advice.

I know 6 lights sounds really complicated but really it is simple. Four light nothing but the backdrop to give me a white high key background. Even though the key and fill are umbrella and softbox, they also are not very complicated; just softer than direct lighting.

I have read that most pet photographers prefer to shoot pets with flat front lighting; I certainly understand why. I love the modeling/shadows that two front lights provide. I want to continue for a little while longer with this semi-complicated setup. I think once I have an assistant or helper, it will be a little better. I will certainly be able to backup enough to use my 80-200mm lens for less distortion.

I must say, in reflection, this was more fun than I had imagined; but also more difficult (controlling the animal, not the lighting)

John,
for Julie and me, the key in using a simple lighting setup is that it is easily duplicated whether in a studio or on-location. Since we shoot equally in those two situations, it's important that we be able to make our lighting schemes bullet-proof and repeatable.

For example, I shot three dogs today here in my studio. The images are going to be used for advertising in our breed magazine The Rottweiler Magazine. Key to us is the ability to take those images and put them on different backgrounds and/or with different handlers. And those handlers and those backgrounds were shot by other photographers in other locations with other lighting. So we need to be able to lift our images, put them with the others and adjust the lighting to match. We do that in Photoshop using their lighting effects filters.

All three of the dogs -- Rottweilers -- were handled by their owner. The first one is of Brew. This is a dog that has finished his championship and will be advertised in our stud dog section. We wanted to emphasize his front which is very, very nice. Here is the basic RAW image from which we'll make the cutout.



The second image is of Stella who is pregnant and the owner wants to advertise her upcoming litter. Again, we chose a stacked shot to emphasize both her structure and her headpiece which is very pretty for a girl.



The last image is a head shot of Blue, the boy we bred Cassidy to and who will be Specialing for the rest of this year. We chose a head shot because he has a gorgeous headpiece. Plus we want to put that shot with a similar one of Cassidy to advertise the litter.



In all three images, we'll get rid of the handler and the background (and the floor) and will then be able to place the dog on any background. With black dogs, getting enough light on the front is essential. And because we were shooting 3 dogs in fairly rapid succession, I needed a lighting setup that was flat and would work for both full body shots and head shots. My regular setup works great for that: 2 Alien Bee 400s set at 45 degrees to the subject, at 7 feet high, bounced off of silver umbrellas both at full power.

We shot these 3 dogs in less than 2 hours. And that included my usual bonus time of getting kissed and hugged by all three. Once we get them cut out, I'll share the final composites but I wanted to emphasize that flat lighting has a lot of bonuses when you want to use your images for a lot of applications.

Cheers,

Jim

thanks Jim, very educational

I promised to post some of the finished images from this shoot with other backgrounds. Here's a shot of Blue -- different from the one I posted but part of the same sequence -- with a more bucolic background.



My point is that by dropping out the background, you can put the dogs on any background image. Since we have so much more control in the studio, it is the preferred option to shooting in the field (at 85 degrees with lots of bugs).

Jim

Here's the stacked shot of Stella with a different background. Keep in mind these images will be used in advertising and will be fairly small when printed on a page.



Wanted to share the results of using studio shots to get environmental shots that would otherwise be very difficult.

Jim