Setting Up the Perfect Photo Shoot

Prepare Your Beagle:
  • Clean or groom your beagle, if necessary. Many beagles get tear stains under their eyes. Take a warm cloth and clean your beagle's face if it's prone to such stains.
  • Please do not dress your beagle in costumes. While most beagles are so tolerant that we can do just about anything with them, we love beagles and want to see their cuteness with no distractions.




Prepare Your Camera:
  • Set your digital camera to the highest quality/resolution setting possible. It may be called "SHQ" (Super High Quality) mode.
  • Make sure the date stamp mechanism is turned off.
  • In dark situations, use your camera's red eye reduction feature to minimize those eerie red (or yellow or green) glowing eyes in flash pictures. Try not to use the flash if you don't need it.



Taking the Photos:
  • Find a location with a nice looking (or non-distracting) background. Keep in mind what else may be in the background that you don't want included or that could disqualify your photo.
  • Only beagles may be the subject of the photographs. Please do not include any people, other breeds of dogs, or other animals. Please make sure there are no products with brand names or logos due to copyright infringement.
  • Photographs taken outdoors work well because the beagle will not have glowing eyes as a result of flash photography. If you take the picture inside, avoid using a flash by brightening the room with lights.
  • For greater visual impact, shoot from your beagle's eye level, not your own.
  • To get your beagle's attention, make funny noises or use squeaky toys. If all else fails, have someone holding a treat off camera.
  • Shoot 4 to 5 feet away from your beagle. Use your zoom lens to crop the portrait as desired from this distance. Avoid using a wide angle lens as it distorts the image. Shooting from too close expands your beagle's features unnaturally. Shooting from too far makes your beagle too small and the image won't enlarge with enough detail to be printed in high quality for our calendar.
  • Focus to get details, head, and tail.
  • Do not zoom in too close. When printing the calendars, there needs to be some room for over enlarging it. We don't want some of your beagle to be cropped out of the picture.
  • Take a lot of pictures to get the best result!