We Should Frame Picture Perfect Pets Too

Our pets are a part of our family and deserve a place on the wall.

While it’s easy to buy beautiful but generic art for our walls at any big box store, what happened to having photos of our loved ones grace our walls? Not only our children, their school photos probably being the only printed photos we get all year, but extended family and even our pets. All too often we profess how close we are to our furry family members but do we have any pictures of them that aren’t just on our phones? Our Picture perfect pets deserve a place on our walls as well. Make sure you have a printer that can quickly, easily and accurately print your beloved photos, like the Epson Expression Premium.

Disclaimer: This article is brought to you by team member Emily who received product in exchange for her opinions. All opinions are 100% her own.

Photographing Pets

Photographing pets can be tricky, but I loved doing pet portraits when I was a professional photographer. And as is with kids, bribery is key. You want to have treats on hand. These days, phones have good enough cameras to capture print-worthy photos. Fancy camera equipment might be nice, but it’s not necessary. You want to make sure you have good light. Cats love sunlight, so it’s perfect to get a photo of them facing the sun. If you want their eyes open, take the photo from a low angle, so they don’t have to squint into the light. Dogs are generally better trained and are told to “sit” and “stay” long enough for a photo. Cats generally don’t listen as well! LOL So try to take a photo in a natural spot for them. Try to make it as neutral a background as possible and make sure to focus on your pet’s face or eyes.

Photographing Chewie

Chewie was my first child. He arrived in my home in 2005 at 1-year-old. So he’s an old man now. Yes, his full unofficial name is Chewbacca. He is a purebred Bombay cat though he is far from the “ideal standard” for the breed, so we got him as a pet. He’s always been bowed legged and is prone to eye infections we constantly have to care for, but he is the most tolerant and loving cat in the world. He loves everyone and will greet anyone at the door like a dog. He’ll reach out his paw to hold my hand and bump his head to mine.

Skinny and small, he has always been tiny and in his old age only has a few back teeth left. He is also the clumsiest cat I have ever seen. He can lay on a perfectly flat surface and still fall off of it. This led to a lot of missing teeth in his youth as he would get the “cat crazies” and run face first into walls. Seriously. And we love him. He has welcomed all three of my human children into the family and he loves them all as he still sleeps with the boys every night. He was much easier and more amenable to being photographed, though treats still helped.

Photographing River

River came to us as an 8-week old kitten from a rescue. She’s about 5 years old now and loves to keep Chewie on his toes. She is much more a typical cat. You can never be sure if she wants pets or will attack your hand. The kids steer clear of her most, though I am most certainly her person. She has never been the brightest cat. I’m not allowed to sleep with pets in my room due to my asthma, and I still have to kick her out. Ever. Single. Night. She’ll never learn. She is a beautiful tabby (two different colors on each individual strand of fur) and has spots and stripes. Outweighing Chewie by 7-10 pounds, she is not fat, she is bulky.

She was much more difficult for me to photograph. She would not stop moving and rarely would stay in any place I wanted to take her picture. So I simply followed her and took as many shots as I could until I was sure I had a couple of good ones.

Picture Perfect Pet Prints

While having access to a professional photo lab is nice, it is also unnecessary. There is also a huge downside to taking your photos into a big box store to be printed. More often than not their equipment is calibrated differently and all of your colors and even your contrast and brightness can be completely off, ruining the photo. So I loved getting the Epson Expression Premium XP-7100. The photos I take are the photos that print. Epson also has high quality glossy and matte photo paper for you to print on in all sizes.

Other Printing

This Epson all-in-one is great for my family. My younger two kids are not in school yet, so the only photos my family gets of them are the ones I print. I can connect my phone wirelessly to the printer and print my photos straight from my phone. I can also print the addresses on all the envelopes I need to send the photos in. With fibromyalgia and joint problems, this saves me a lot of hand cramps. If I use my DSLR I can simply pop my sd card right into the card slot on the printer and decides which ones to print straight away. I can use it to copy and scan as well.

Plus, no extra wires are needed for my computer. I just hook both up to my Wifi and I’m good to go. I love having one extra USB slot as they are limited enough for my desktop. Communication is quick and printing is quick and quiet. This device also has two separate loading trays so I can keep my smaller photo papers or envelopes int eh top tray and have standard paper or larger photo paper in the bottom.

Conclusions

We love our cats. They may be annoying at times, but they are soft, purring loves. Chewie may be 13 but I hope he has a good number of years left in him. Until then I hope to capture and frame many more images to remember. I love that Epson has made this quick, easy and very possible. The Epson Expression Premium XP-7100 has been a wonderful addition to my photography and computer set up. It’s so simple to set up and use and the quality can’t be beaten. It scans clearly and it prints clearly. And though my cats were very curious to check it out, it’s pretty economical for a family as well. My picture perfect pets love it and so do it.

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