One of the things I hear quite often from dog owners before a photoshoot is: “Just so you know, he doesn’t really know how to stay.”
 

For me? That’s usually much less of a problem than they think. I don’t need the dog to stay in one place for a minute, I don’t even need 20 seconds. In many cases, all I need is one good half-second.
 

If I see that the dog isn’t very well trained, or isn’t trained at all, I simply approach the session with a little more flexibility. I leave more room for “intentional mistakes”, and quite often those dogs actually give me much more lively frames. The moment the owner starts moving slightly away from the dog, I’m already on the shutter, and if the dog makes a small movement, changes position or starts to move, sometimes that’s exactly where the photo is.
 

But this only works if I already know what I want before the dog gets into position. My camera settings are ready, I already know what my background will be, I know exactly where I want to photograph from, and I know more or less where the dog needs to be inside the frame. I don’t want to position a dog and then start walking around with my camera trying to figure out what to do with him. For me, that’s wasting the dog’s time.
 

And this is true even with the best-trained dog in the world. If I need a dog to stay in the same spot for more than 10–15 seconds just so I can build the photo, that’s already my problem, not the dog’s. He shouldn’t have to wait while I search for an angle, change my settings and try to figure out what I wanted to photograph.
 

So what am I looking for during that half-second? First, a gaze that works with the frame. Usually there are two or three directions that make sense depending on the composition. I don’t want the dog looking in a direction that works completely against the frame or against the rule of thirds, and if you haven’t read my article about that yet, it’s worth checking out too.
 

But I don’t always need a “perfect” gaze. Sometimes it’s a small expression that makes the dog feel a little more human and makes the photo more interesting. What I almost always want during that fraction of a second is a closed mouth whenever possible and the ears in their highest, most flattering position. Those little details can completely change the expression. At the end of the day, my job as a dog photographer isn’t just to photograph the dog, it’s to make the dog look as good as possible.
 

I also always shoot in High Speed Continuous mode, which allows the camera to capture many frames in a single second. Sometimes the moment happens without the owner even noticing it. The mouth closes, the gaze becomes more focused, the ears come up, and for that fraction of a second the dog suddenly looks incredibly precise and elegant. I might get several almost identical frames during that second, but sometimes the difference between “almost” and the photo I actually want exists in just one of them.
 

This is also why I don’t work by simply letting the dog run free and waiting for something good to happen. The background and composition are far too important in my style for that. If the dog is moving freely and I’m chasing him with my camera, I don’t really have control over what’s behind him, where he is inside the frame or how all the elements work together. I could photograph like that for two hours and end up with four or five photos that are almost what I wanted.
 

For me, that isn’t worth anyone’s time, especially the dog’s time and energy. I’d rather ask the dog to sit or stand a few times in locations I’ve already chosen and get 5–10 precise frames from it.
 

Another thing I see photographers doing is continuing to photograph a frame they already have. The dog is in position, the expression happened, the frame is captured and what they wanted is already on the memory card, but they just keep shooting. Very often I’m finished with a frame within 30 seconds. I have it? Great. We move on. There’s no reason to waste more of the dog’s energy, the owner’s energy or mine on a photo I’ve already taken.
 

The problem is even bigger when the dog is positioned before the photographer knows what they actually want. If you ask the owner to put the dog somewhere and only then start searching for the background, choosing your angle and trying to figure out the composition, you can keep shooting and shooting without ever reaching the frame you’re looking for, simply because you never decided what that frame was supposed to be.
 

In all the years I’ve been photographing dogs, there has only been one dog I genuinely couldn’t get what I wanted from. It happened during a workshop in the Netherlands. He was extremely excited, panting heavily and so hyper that I couldn’t get even that fraction of a second where he looked calm and relaxed. Luckily, his owner brought two dogs and I had promised her two photos, the other dog was sweet and relaxed, so he got both of them.

Other than that one case, I’ve never had a dog that was “impossible to photograph”.
 

I don’t need a perfect minute from the dog, I need to know exactly what I’m looking for, be ready before he is... and catch the half-second when he gives it to me.
 

Here are a few photos that existed for only a fraction of a second... photos of dogs that were anything but “static” during their sessions.