Search Results for: blog say cheese what to do with that perfect pet photo

Prepping for the Easter Family Portrait

With Easter just a few days away many hobby shutterbugs are getting ready to capture holiday memories with their digital cameras. Given that Easter typically yields large family gatherings, the festive Sunday is the perfect opportunity to snap keepers of your clan. In preparation for the informal photo shoot, it’s a good idea to consider the following: Make a shot list: Contrary to popular belief photo shot lists are not just for weddings. Prior to taking family portraits it’s a good idea to prepare by thinking of the types of photos you want. Consider different poses and how each member … Continue reading →

Try a Free Starbucks Petite During Starbucks Tribute Days

Posted on by

Starbucks is celebrating it’s 40th birthday. Visit a Starbucks during their Tribute Days and receive a free Starbucks Petites treat when you purchase a handcrafted beverage. This offer is only good for a limited amount of time. Tribute Days is something Starbucks is doing to celebrate their 40th birthday, and also as a way to say “Thank You” to all of their customers who have helped to make them so successful over the years. I had no idea that Starbucks had been around for four decades! I visit Starbucks a lot, and I often pick up a one of their … Continue reading →

Diary of a Cat Care B&B: Pictures and Report Cards

Today was a frustertaining day at the cats-only boarding facility. Frustertaining = entertaining and frustrating at the same time. Why? Because I was working on report cards. We try to write up a little report card for every guest who stays with us. It’s got checklists for how the cat ate, how the cat seemed emotionally, and what health issues we may have noticed. There’s space for comments… and we put a picture on the front. (School pictures and report card day, all in one!) Once again, I found myself appreciating the folks who do pet photography professionally. Some of … Continue reading →

Appreciating Pet Photographers

I got the brilliant idea of a “family portrait” the other day — Moose, Lally, and I all in the same picture for once. (It’s rare that I can get that to happen.) Moose is the easy one. He’s pretty happy to lay there and pose for pictures without a problem for quite some time. All it takes is a little petting and you’ve got a Moose in place! I’m probably the second-easiest one out of the family trio. I’m not usually fond of pictures of myself, but I’m willing to pose and try not to blink. Lally is the … Continue reading →

Win $300 in the Doctors Foster and Smith Pet Photo Contest

After I wrote the article about Grandma Dorothy’s top Doctors Foster and Smith cat catalog picks, I placed an order for some of her suggestions. (Specifically, the cat grass and the catnip bubbles, which I’ll be writing about in another article.) That’s when I noticed their pet photo contest. The Anniversary Photo Contest As part of their 25th Anniversary celebrations, Doctors Foster and Smith launched a pet photo contest. Each month they award 10 First Place, 10 Second Place, and 10 Third Place prizes to winners in 10 different categories. The neat thing about it is that all First, Second, … Continue reading →

Preparing for Holiday Photo Shoots

I know. I know. Some of you haven’t even looked through the photos you shot at Christmas, and Easter is less than two weeks away. Time waits for no man and that goes double for overworked parents who desperately need to find room on their camera’s memory card to accommodate Easter shots. So what if your tulips are buried under six inches of snow. Spring like temperatures may not arrive in time for your holiday get together, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your camera out and document your annual family gathering. Here are some tips to help get … Continue reading →

Photo Challenges

“Mommy take my picture with Sue.” It was a request made by my then 2-year-old daughter while we were visiting Sue the T. Rex at Chicago’s Field Museum a while back. She knows I am an avid photographer so asking for a picture with the colossal fossil was seemingly a no-brainer. Of course, getting the massive meat-eating monster in the same frame as my tiny tot proved to be a challenge larger than the bony creature itself. Sue measures forty-one feet long from nose to tail, and twelve feet tall at the hips. Try getting that in a shot without … Continue reading →

The Early Christmas Present: Trouble for Murphy, Mr. Meow and Tabby

Because Wayne returned to his old job with the old hours (i.e. long and frequent), he knew he wasn’t going to have time for Christmas shopping. So last Sunday we went to Best Buy to get me a new digital camera: a Canon PowerShot SD 1000. Wow, is it slick! It’s my first digital camera so I have a bit of a learning curve to overcome, but who cares? That’s half the fun. Besides, it does a bunch of neat things my film camera couldn’t do –like take movies with sound! I haven’t had all that much time to play … Continue reading →

Photography Potpourri—-NO To “Cheese” and YES to Hats

In the last couple of weeks I’ve provided tips on how to capture frameworthy shots and what to do when you don’t have enough frames to preserve your prize-winning photos. Shooting the perfect picture and organizing the end results… you’d think I would have exhausted all of my advice by now, but you’d be wrong. I have a few additional tips I wanted to share with you. (When my daughter was an infant she would wear a different hat nearly everyday.) JUST SAY NO TO “CHEEEESSSSE.” It’s the universal method for getting photo subjects to smile (or least contort their … Continue reading →

Pet Portraits by Michael: Chatting About Pet Photography

In Meet the Josephs I introduced you to some very dear friends of our entire family: Michael, Karen, and Tucker Joseph. (I should have used the above picture for that piece, but I didn’t have it yet. Oh well. Now you can see what the Josephs, not just Tucker, look like!) I thought it’d be fun to interview them about their business, and thankfully their schedule wasn’t as swamped as it usually is so they had a little time to humor me… Courtney Mroch: Say someone’s interested in getting a Pet Portrait by Michael. Describe how a shoot goes, what … Continue reading →