Location & Background

• Choose a location where your animal will be relaxed

• Get (down on) eye level with your animal

• Minimize (remove) distracting things in the background

• Generally, the more (natural) light, the better, and typically having the light source (the sun) behind you makes a better photo, too

• Photograph against a color that contrasts with his/her coat (I.e., if your animal has dark fur, photograph against a light background and vice-versa)
  

It's in the eyes

• Focus on your animal's eyes

• Avoid photographing in low light situations where flash is required (and makes animals' eyes glow); instead, use natural light whenever possible

Patience is a virtue

• Hang in there; it may take some time to get a great shot!

• Enlist a helper to squeak toys near your camera to get your animal to look at the camera
  

How to Vote

• Click on the photo you want to vote for.

• Change the number of votes to the number of votes you want to donate.

• Click Update Total, then click Vote which will take you to the PayPal payment screen (note: PayPal accepts all credit cards).

• The number of votes applied to each photo updates immediately.

• To vote for another photo, click on Home in the top right of the screen and select the photo you want to vote for.

Using the Piggy Bank

• The Piggy Bank allows you to store votes for a later date.

• Click on My Piggy Bank and enter the number of votes you want to allocate in the white box.

• Click Update Total. The total # of votes will populate on the blue Vote button at the bottom of the screen. Click this button.

• To see which entries you voted for, return to the Dashboard, then click My Votes.