There are several times in my life where I took things for granted.  I took for granted how easy it was to live at home; I took for granted how easy it was to find a good-looking girlfriend; and I took for granted how uncomplicated life was when I was in college.  Well, add one more to the list: taking pictures of my two cats Franky and Sandy.

My friends keep sending me digital photo holiday cards that are unbelievable.  It’s like someone stuffed the cat, put it in a studio, and bang…there’s the perfect image.  So I thought why not take some funny pet photos and see if I could make my friends jealous by forwarding a tantalizing photo gallery all over the web.

You know what I learned?  Don’t take for granted the fact that your pets don’t want to pose when taking pictures!  Photographing pets is not easy.  You can read all the photo tips you want, but listen to me.  I now know what I’m doing.

First things first, you want to take a lot of digital pictures.  The more digital photos you take, the better the odds are of you actually getting something worth sharing.  And get that digital camera towards the pet’s eye level.  Any pet looks cuter when you get right down to that face of theirs.  Their expressions are told just like ours.  Franky’s face said, “Beat it with this camera.”  The other important photo tip to know is to take a lot of action shots.  Let your pet do whatever it is they do and take candid pictures while they are doing it.

What all these photo tips come down to is this: don’t stage your photos, people.  Don’t be that guy or girl!  Before you know it, there will be pictures of your favorite pet all over every photo card, Christmas card, and blog you can think of…or at least yours.  Just remember please do not dress your pet up when taking photos – that’s just not right!