The cats of burlington humane | volunteer pet photographer

One of the things I want to explore more is video – I have an amazing camera with fantastic video capabilities (television shows have been shot using the Canon Mark II) and I’ve never used it! This past weekend I fiddled around with it a little bit while doing my volunteer pet photographer gig at the Burlington Humane Society … video is tough! Here are a few things I learned after only one day of shooting video:

1) You need A LOT of footage to make an interesting video. I was at BHS to photograph cats for the shelter’s website, so I only had time to record a few of the residents. I could have recorded all the cats in the shelter and it might not have been enough to make a visually interesting video!

2) Have a story in mind. I didn’t really have a story this time around, but for my next attempt I’m going to try to see the big picture — signs, people, colours — and the smaller details to create a real story.

3) Holding the camera steady is darn near impossible! I was hand-holding and on my knees a lot to get down to cat level, which wasn’t working well. A monopod might be a good idea (or one of those nifty fig rigs).

4) Focusing … see #3. I like the way the shot goes in and out of focus sometimes, but doing it with intention will take practice.

5) When shooting stills to be incorporated into video, shoot horizontal (d’uh)! This wasn’t even on my mind since I shoot vertical for the shelter’s website, so when I cropped to 16:9 for this video all my images became super closeups.

With all that lowering of your expectations, here is my very first ever video – we all have to start somewhere and I enjoyed playing with my camera. I love the possibilities and creativity this could lead to!