"Dude, what is your deal?"
"What? I'm just taking a couple of pictures."
"A couple? You've taken, like, forty pictures of me already today. You're cramping my style. I'm trying to go for a walk, here. I've got bushes to sniff, lawns to pee on, critters to chase-- I don't have time for photography."
"Sorry, but you remember that book contract?"
"Yeah."
"Well, I'm obliged to provide them with a number of reproduction-quality photographs of you, for possible use as chapter illustrations."
"Oh." She's quiet for a minute. "So, these are going to be published?"
"Maybe."
"Well, then, at least make sure you get my good side! Sheesh!"
(I took a bunch of pictures of the dog this morning, with possible use in the book in mind. We've got lots of pictures of her already, but I tried to get some with good clean backgrounds, and a few action shots on our morning walk.
(The best of the lot, cropped and GIMPed a little bit, are in this photoset, and you can also see artsy black-and-white versions, as that's actually what the contract specifies. Luckily, she's a pretty photogenic dog, even if she doesn't like to do her cutest poses when the camera is out...)
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Great dog. I'm looking forward to the book. Do you have dog's-eye-level photos, rather than your 7' eye-level ones?
I would say sitting, bush, and eye level are the best of the set.
I agree with Rajesh, your excessive height makes the perspective a bit weird on some of them for those of us who aren't as vertically blessed.
It's hard to get dog's-eye-level pictures of her, because if I sit down on the floor to try for a picture, she takes that as an indication that it's playtime, and sticks her face directly into the camera. It's hard to get pictures at a reasonable distance from that angle.
Why the bird's-eye views? Try seeing a dog at dog level, or puppy/kitten level. What you need is a confederate to occupy the dog's attention, leaving you free to document the interactiveness of Lady Browneyes.
Does your dog have a cat of her own? A kitten can bring out the playful and nurturing sides of an adult dog, who will likely grow into a very caring parent to a permanently kittenish feline uninterested in grownup behavior. A dog can have great fun teaching a kitten to play. And the kitten gets the benefit of a permanent protector who is freaking HUGE.
Having taken a bazillion pictures of my own dog, I have found that one of the best ways to take dogs-eye-level photos, at least for me, is to use a digital camera with one of those flip out screens. That way I can hold the camera down near my knees and look down at the screen to see what it is seeing, and I don't have to stoop down and make her think its playtime.
What a vain dog, though it is amusing how much nicer-looking the B&W ones are.