Pet keepsakes: getting the pose right

Unlike a person, you generally can't ask a pet to hold a pose, so the goal with a pet photo is different: find the moment that already captures how they actually sit, stand or look at you, rather than trying to stage a new one.

A slightly elevated angle, roughly eye level with the pet, tends to read better than a photo taken from standing height looking down — it avoids distorting proportions and captures their expression more naturally.

Good natural light matters even more for pets than for people, since fur detail and colour markings carry a lot of the likeness. An overcast day outdoors or light from a window indoors usually beats a flash, which can flatten colour and cause reflective eyes.

If you're commissioning a keepsake of a person and their pet together, a photo where both are roughly the same distance from the camera — rather than one held close and the other further back — makes the final proportions feel right.

And if the only photo you have isn't perfect — a little blurry, taken mid-movement — upload it anyway. It's often the most honest likeness of a pet that never really sat still to begin with.