Your Pet Monthly Highlight

If you were up early enough this morning 01st December 2025 and were tuned into BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Morning Radio, you would of heard me, DeeLights Photography speaking live on air They are looking for pictures of your pets dressed for Christmas and calling it Santapaws. They want you to send your pet Christmas pictures into them and they asked me to give a bit of advice on how to photograph your pets at home with your phone. I wasn't on air for long so only gave a couple of tips so Ive put a little dos & dont's tips list below on capturing your pets at home this Christmas. And to get into the festive spirit I'm offering 20% off your pet portraits if you book before 31st December 2025.

If you are using props - hats/antlers ect bring them out a couple of days before so your pet can get used to the look, the feel & the smell of them so its not some scary big fluffy hat coming towards them on the day and make sure they are pet safe.
On the day take your dog for a really long walk or if you have any indoor pets have a good play with them so they have ran off a bit of steam and hopefully just want to rest/stay put when your taking the pictures
Give them a good groom, wipe away any eye slugs and clean up any slobber chops they might have
If you can get someone to help you even better as they will be able to help with props as its always hard when your taking the picture but having to try and get your pet to stay still
have their favourite treats and toys to hand to encourage your pet to stay put using your normal stay command and get your helper to softly pop the hat / antler on your pet. While they are doing that get as low as possible so you are on the same level as your pets head, that way they are not tilting their heads up to look at you which would then make the props fall off their heads and you have to start over again!
once in place use quick short burst fire on your camera so you get a sequence of pictures even the inbetween funny natural ones can make for great pics
to stop the grainy speckled look to your photos, use as much natural light as possible, photographing in front of a window or open door would be great ... don't use flash or artificial light as this could scare your pet and make their eyes glare, so turn off the flash on your phone and any overhead lights you have on in the room. then position your pet at a slight angle to the window or door so they are not face on, that way you will get the nice catch light in their eyes, thats the little white highlight which makes the eyes sparkle
If you have a pet with dark fur the light from the window might cause white highlights or if you don't have an open window your pet might look too dark and disappear into the shadows. The trick to this is with the brightness level on your phone... play around with the settings before you take your pictures so you get used to how it works.... open your phone camera you might see that some little boxes automatically appear focusing on a person on the telly or a photo on the wall but you want your pet in focus so hold your phone steady with your elbows into your body to stop any camera shake, tap on the screen to focus on your pet and not the background as you will want that nice twinkle blur of your christmas tree lights or any christmas set up you've got, the more distance between your pet and the background, the more blur you will see ... on the brightness slider slide down (to the left) if your picture/pet looks too bright this will darken the image slightly or slide up (to the right) to brighten the image if your house is quiet dark
Most importantly keep your pet safe and calm, if they're not playing ball take short breaks and try again a little later ... if they are not used to having props on their heads or get too stressed when your trying then don't do it, take pictures of your pet with fairy lights behind them on the tree with a bow collar or wrapped present boxes to the side of them, pets looking to find out what's inside the boxes can be really cute, that being said placing a goodie on top of the boxes usually works a treat :)