Photographing your Cat, a 5-Minute Essentials Guide

In just 5 minutes, learn some cool techniques for getting great shots of your feline friend(s).

By Rob J. Watson

What is needed:

A camera
A cat
Some light

If you are comfortable fiddling with your camera's settings and spending a little more time to get your shot, you have even more flexibility for great pictures. See Photographing your Cat, a 10-minute Advanced Guide if you have a whiz-bang camera with all the bells and whistles and you're not affraid to use it!

Your Subject

Get close.
Tell a story.
Capture candid moments that do not look posed.
Take pictures at your subject’s eye-level.
Include meaningful elements in your shot and show kitty enjoying himself.

Lighting

Good lighting is the most important part of getting great pictures.

Use natural lighting as often as possible.
Strong lighting from one side of your subject generally provides the most pleasing effect.
Morning and afternoon light are generally the best times to make natural-light photographs outside.
Avoid using your flash unless there are bright elements behind your subject.
Avoid red-eye by turning your flash off or try to prevent your subjects from looking directly at the camera. Many cats will be startled by some camera's pre-flash systems, it is best to avoid startling your cat in the first place by just not using the flash.

Focus

Make sure kitty's eyes are sharp. If your camera does not allow you to control focus, make sure kitty's face is near the center of the frame, hold the shutter button down half-way, and recompose your shot if you like, without changing your distance from kitty.
Brace yourself and/or the camera against anything solid and unmoving whenever possible.
Press the shutter button slowly and deliberately.

Exposure

Avoid bright highlights and scenes with very bright and very dark areas.

Composition

There are rules. Some have been used by great artists for many years, some rules are meant to be broken, some just make sense.

Don't put kitty's face right in the middle of the shot. Put him off to the side a little, Imagine your scene split up in to nine squares. Where the lines intersect are good places for kitty's face/eyes. If your camera has Automatic Focus and/or a single AF point: Allow the camera to establish focus on kitty's eyes before taking your picture, activate the AF-lock (holding the shutter-release button down half-way is one way to do this), and recompose the shot without changing focus.
Be aware of foreground, middle ground and background elements. Avoid elements that interfere with your intended subject, like that wayward house-plant vine sticking down behind kitty's head.
Avoid strong linear elements touching a corner of the frame.