Photo tips for fosters
Good photos are the easiest way to help your foster dog get adopted. In a study of 468 adopted black Lab mixes, overall photo quality made a bigger difference to how fast a dog was adopted than anything else in the picture. You don’t need a fancy camera. You need good light and the dog’s eyes.
- Get down to their eye level. Hold the phone where the dog’s eyes are, not above their head.
- Take it outside the crate or pen. A plain wall, a couch or a patch of grass works great. Bars in front of a dog make people score the photo lower.
- Use soft light. Window light or open shade is perfect. Skip night shots and bright light behind the dog.
- Use the regular lens and tap the eyes. Don’t zoom. Tap the dog’s eyes on the screen so they’re in focus.
- Get the “puppy eyes.” Make a little noise or hold a treat just above the lens so they look up at you.
- Take three kinds of shots. A clean face shot, a full-body standing shot, and one of them doing something real: curled on a lap, napping, playing with another dog, or hanging out with the cat if that’s true.
- Big, blocky-headed dogs: get one with a person’s hand or lap in it. It helps people picture the dog as the sweetheart they are.
- Shoot a 15-second video. Just the dog being themselves. People rate dogs as friendlier on video than in still photos.
- Send the original. Upload the photo straight from your phone. No screenshots, filters, frames or text on top.
Photos that work
A few of ARF’s own photos. Notice the eye level, the soft light and nothing between the dog and the camera.
Questions about photos or video? Ask us.