1. It is best if you take the photos in the sunlight or shaded natural light, which will provide a single light source and the shadows will play on the ups and downs, ins and outs of your animal's face and body. If I only have a photo that used a flash, it will be very hard to achieve a three-dimensional look in the finished painting.
2. Try to get on your animal's level. If you don't want to get on the ground, then put the subject a few steps up on a terrace.
3. It doesn't matter what is in the background of your photos, since I usually paint a muted background, without a detail of trees, flowers, etc. But it is helpful to position your animal in front of a contrasting color, so that I can clearly see the shapes - don't put a black dog in front of a black wall.
4. It helps to have someone help you, so that they can get the pet to look to the side & perk ears to a special word, etc. Take several different angles - full view, 3/4 view, etc.
5. Let me know if you want to have just a head and chest portrait or the whole body. Usually the head is the most interesting part of the animal, but we can discuss it after I see your photos. If you have any particular colors you want me to emphasize in the background or shadows, let me know. Think about where you want to hang the finished painting & let me know the color scheme in that room. Usually the paintings are about 8" x 10", but with matting and framing that could get up to about 16" x 18".
6. Digital photos are great for several reasons - you can just email them to me & I can easily crop them to get a pleasing composition. But prints are fine too, of course. Send several photos; they will all be returned.
Here's an example of a digital picture I took of Ben (his sister is in the background). He's up on a table in the sun & I can see the shape of his cute head very well. Below is his finished portrait. You can see that I totally ignored the background and chose colors that worked well with the colors I used to paint the dog. I just painted his face - the most interesting part for sure. It's a cute photo, but I think the portrait really sparkles.
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