Ever wonder why most advertisers avoid black furry animals for their billboards and commercials?  That’s because black dogs, black cats, black guinea pigs, black anything is extremely hard to photograph well.  This is one reason why they turn to brighter-colored animals such as a yellow Labrador/Golden Retriever puppy mix.  But don’t let this knowledge stop you from adopting a black pet like a black Lab puppy.  With patience, an eye for contrasting colors and a decent camera, you can get great snaps of your black Lab puppy.

Make Sure The Pup Is Tired

Best portraits of an all-black Lab puppy are best done outside in natural light, where there are a lot of distractions.  You need to get a good play session in with your puppy before you attempt any kind of photography – unless you have high-speed film!  Puppies have short attention spans, so also bring noisemakers or squeaky toys to get their attention.

Location, Location, Location

You need to get your black Lab puppy against a lighter colored background such as green grass or clear blue lake water.  You definitely don’t want him against anything about as dark as he is.  The viewer will have a hard time discerning the puppy from the rest of the picture.

You also don’t want the background to be “busy”, with a lot of objects and colors and things to distract the viewer’s eye from your magnificent black Lab puppy.  You want the background to be as uniform as possible.  Be careful with really bright white backgrounds, as they can throw light back into your camera and ruin the shot.

In The Studio

It is certainly possible to photograph your black Lab puppy indoors, although this requires very specific lighting so your puppy doesn’t look like a silhouette in a three dimensional world.  If worse comes to worse, take your black Lab puppy to a professional photographer.  They have the lighting equipment to make the portrait look life like.

If you’d like to give a go, you need to get what’s called a “key light”, sometimes referred to as a “hair light”, so you can see the hairs on your black Lab puppy instead of just one glob of demon-eyed darkness.  This would be placed behind and to one side of the puppy.  Then, you need to take a lot of pictures to be sure you get that perfect shot that will forever record the magic of when your Lab was still a little black Lab puppy.

Tags: Black Lab Puppy, Labrador Golden Retriever Puppy

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