Taking good photos of Scotties isn’t easy, is it?
Even professional photographers agree that black dogs pose a real problem to shoot well.
You are the proud owner of one, two, maybe even 3 of the most iconic dogs in the known universe.
From the time you collect your precious new puppy from the breeder at 12 weeks, or from the Rescue Association, you try to immortalise every moment of this new life. Like every new parent it becomes paramount to capture those cute moments for posterity. Your finger rarely leaves the screen of your phone.
And you need to SHARE. Facebook beckons. So does WhatsApp.
You might even open an Instagram account for your Scottie.
But the chances are, a great many of your pictures will suffer from that most pernicious condition, Black Dog-itis.
I know mine do. My sins were many.

1/ COMPOSING THE SHOT IN 3 SECONDS (Blurry / badly cropped)

2/ TOO FAR FROM THE SUBJECT

3/ TOO CLOSE TO THE SUBJECT

4/ LIGHTING (too bright /flash)

5/THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN THE PICTURE BY ACCIDENT

6/ ANGLE AWKWARD  (trying to be too arty)

7/ MESSY BACKGROUND  (not looking before shooting)

8/ FLATTENED TEXTURE (Too cloudy / dark)

9/ EYES HIDDEN (too slow / dog bored / moving / looking away)

10/ BACKLIT, SHOT AGAINST WINDOWS (result, a black blob.)

Recognise any of these? Chances are you have taken at least three of them, and even the smart tools on your phone won’t do much to save them.
Which made me think.
Mindful that all of us in the London Scottie Club think we are pretty knowledgeable about Scotties, shouldn’t we be experts in how to photograph them as well?
Could we improve our presence on social media if our Scottie pictures on the Club’s instagram page looked as amazing as our dogs do?
I talked to a couple of photographer friends, (not that helpful) and researched for advice online (helpful).
As most of us use our phones to take pictures and films, I have left out advice using professional equipment.
But found the following two sites that really helped to understand what I could do easily to improve my Scottie pictures.
https://www.rhianwhitephotography.co.uk/blog/2018/1/28/how-to-photograph-black-dogs
https://www.pitpat.com/doggy-insights/picture-pawfect-10-tips-for-photographing-black-dogs/

Enter, The Red Carpet.

After talking it over with George and Fraser, we decided to upload a more constant feed of good Scottie photographs, taken by members, onto the Club Instagram. Of course we will need stories (films) but would like to start with choice, well shot Scottie images from our members. Let’s call them the Red Carpet collection.
For a trial two month period, from September 1st, we’re inviting all our members to sharpen the Instagram feed every week by sending in your best shots of your VIP’s, to the WhatsApp Convo site.  I will be taking over the curation of the Instagram page, and will post images of the previous week on Fridays. Captions are important on Insta, so please include the title ‘ Red Carpet’, the name of your VIP and where you took the photograph.
We’re very excited about this project and look forward to seeing our VIP’s becoming A- List celebrities on our Instagram page from September.