Personally and professionally I enjoy photographing dogs. One challenge in photographing dogs can be in photographing dark colored dogs particularly all black dogs. I have had lots of experience photographing black dogs. I have had two different black dogs in my life. I have also photographed multiple black dogs at our local animal shelter. I have spent quite some time photographing them to various degrees of success. With lots of practice and experience I began to get good at creating nice photographs of all black dogs. The more control of the situation you have the better your results can be. However we do not always have as much control of the circumstances in which we photograph as we might like, particularly when photographing animals in a shelter setting. The biggest key to photographing black dogs is the light. If we are able to get the light right we are able to bring out the texture in a black dogs fur or the color in their eyes. We can bring out at least some element that shows their personality.

Check out these other tips for photographing black dogs from Mother Nature Network: http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/how-to-photograph-black-dogs-and-cats

Using Social Media

I think with the increasing proliferation of different types of social media websites it is important to have a separate strategy to how you are going to engage with each format you decide to participate in. 

I am not here to tell you how you should use each format to make it work best for you other than to say use social media in a way that is specific to you as an individual or business. Everyone is different and has different desires for the goals of using social media so to me everyone's usage should vary depending in their specific circumstances. 

Also don't feel like you need to participate in all iterations of social media. Use the formats that make sense for you. I use Twitter, Facebook, +Google, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. I even have multiple accounts for some of them. However, I use each format and each account differently. 

Some sites I post to more frequently than others and I share different types of things on different sites. For example on Facebook I have three different accounts. I have a business page dedicated solely to my photography business. I have another page dedicated to my PhD Dissertation research where I post things related to that effort. And finally I have a personal page used mainly for keeping in touch with friends and family where I share a wide variety if things across the spectrum. 

Another way I diversify my social media usage is I usually don't post the same things to every site. If I have something I want to share that I think will appeal to my audience on more than one social media platform than I will share it simultaneously in multiple platforms because it makes sense to do that. But one thing to keep in kind is, why would someone follow you on multiple social media formats if you post he same thing in each format. It seems that if you want to build the largest audience it would be smart to diversify your usage. 

Here is an example of one post that I shared across multiple platforms because I felt it would resonate with each one.

Buy a print of your favorite animal and help support the Chemung County SPCA. Now including Buddy, Copper, and Thor. http://krnaturalphoto.photoshelter.com/gallery/SPCA-Animals/G0000Lo3vbBDdmaQ/

Foster Kittens

For me one of the most important words in life is passion. I believe that it is critical to have passion in life. I try to plug into as many things that I am passionate about as possible. My beliefs are based on what I am passionate about. I study psychology because I am passionate about it. I am a photographer because I am passionate about it. I have companion animals because I am passionate about them. As my life has gone on, I have developed new passions.

I love dogs and animals in general. My wife and I currently have four dogs and two cats. We are also providing foster care for six kittens and their mother until the kittens are old enough to be adopted from our local animal shelter. When I say we I mostly mean my wife but it was a joint decision for her to do it since they would be in our house. There was a time when I would have worked hard to persuade my wife not to do this. This time was not too long ago in fact.

I had been against the idea of us providing foster care for cats not because I didn’t think it was a good thing to do, but because my wife has such a strong connection to animals that I feared she would not be able to let them go to be adopted and we already had sufficient commitments to our current companion animals that I did not think we could responsibly handle any more.

Not too long before the six kittens we have now my wife persuaded me to that she should provide foster care for one kitten who had no mother and would require bottle feeding. After discussing the matter and coming to the understanding that no matter what we would not be keeping the kitten we decided she should give it a shot.

People who know me probably know that I have resisted providing foster care and may wonder why I changed my mind. So I thought I would write about it.

The biggest reason why I have reversed my position on us providing foster care is related directly to passion. Over probably the past year, I have become increasingly educated on issues relating to companion animals. I have become increasingly informed about the past and present of our sheltering system in the United States. I have become aware of the No Kill movement in America. As I have become educated about animal sheltering the No Kill movement has become an issue I am passionate about. I firmly believe it can be achieved by any animal shelter that commits to doing it. I do not believe it will be easy but I believe there have been enough success stories to prove that it can be done.

It is this passion for the No Kill movement that convinced me to change. A key component in creating a no kill animal shelter is having concerned citizens volunteer to provide foster care for animals that the shelter cannot provide are for. This created a lot of dissonance in my mind. How can I truly support the No Kill movement and be unwilling to allow foster care for companion animals to happen in my home. So Finally it crystallized in my mind. If my wife is passionate about fostering companion animals then we should do it.