Animal Welfare Professionals

Thank you, @MF Butler for sharing your excellent tips!

This video is really helpful.  I'm a complete amateur photographing my foster kittens on my iPhone 15.  The number one thing I've found is important is to put the camera down at their level.  It really makes them connect with it and people viewing the photographs feel like the kitten is looking right into their own eyes.  Im often photographing throughout the kittens' stay with me and get great shots that way but try to do a formal session shortly before they leave me.  Im finding that concentrating on getting some really good photos and thinking about an adopter who will connect with them that way makes it easier for me to let them go when I have to return them.  Often Im returning them and the adopters have already seen my photos online and are waiting to meet them so that's very satisfying.  For photography sessions, I usually have a bright colored, attractive toy that the kitten hasn't seen before.  The brightness of the toy catches the eye as people are scrolling through photos and playing brings out the kitten's personality even more.  I've learned that it usually takes from 30 - 60 min of play before I start getting really good shots - the majority of photos before that, even if I use burst mode, tend to be blurry.  After playing hard, they then settle enough that I start to get really good, clean photos.  Because I live alone out in the country, it's rare that I can have someone help me.  A piece of equipment that proved worth investing in was a ShiftCam ProGrip for my iPhone.  It lets me shoot one handed with full control over the phone/camera so my other hand can wave things around or otherwise direct the kitten's focus.  Experimenting with these incredibly cute subjects is a lot of fun for me and I've found that the kittens equally love photo sessions and all the focus on them.  I saw the guidelines for photos set by a shelter in Texas and thought they were really useful: they ask fosters to get 3 photos - 1 close up of the face, 1 full body and 1 "personality" shot, for example a kitten enthusiastically sinking its teeth into a toy or yawning adorably.  Also, ask whoever is posting the photos what size they need and you may want to shoot in that size.  I used to shoot in the standard 4:6 rectangular frame but now shoot mainly in the 1:1 square format or edit rectangular photos into that format so that the shelter gets them ready to go on the website and doesn't have to do additional editing to get it into the square needed for posting on their website.