At the moment, a friend of mine is mother to five rapidly growing kittens. Before Christmas I had the brainwave of doing a Christmas-themed photoshoot with them so we could have some nice pictures of them while they’re still tiny and adorable. This proved more difficult than I first thought, but it was a great lesson in pet-photography.

Our first attempt was at night, when the kittens are usually let out for a bit of a romp. This meant, unfortunately, that they were extremely energetic after being in their pen all day. Getting them to stay in the room was difficult, even with three pairs of hands! I was using the D300 with the 18-200mm lens, which is usually my go-to combination for just about anything. The problem was not enough light and fast moving kittens. For an hours work we got two ‘decent’ shots at a very grainy 1600 ISO, even with a multiple-light set up. We arranged a time for another attempt, and both went back to the drawing board to devise better ways of corralling and lighting the kittens.

Our next crack at it was during the day, with much more natural light. The kittens had been pre-romped before we started, and my kit this time was the D700 with a fixed 50mm f1.8, and a LumiQuest Softbox LTp with a SB800 Speedlight. This was a much more effective run, and I’m very pleased with the photos we got. We set up a pen big enough for the kittens to run around in, me to lie down with the camera, and Dad to hover with the Softbox.

The last few images were dead-on what I had originally envisaged, and it was a very rewarding shoot. My favourite photo is below. I made a few greeting cards using Snapfish while they had a sale on, and they came out very well. I’ll be keeping an eye out for future sales to print more cards.