How to photograph a black chihuahua

So here's the thing—it turns out black dogs are hard to photograph.

Clover is one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life, and her twinkling eyes and jaunty step are just about enough to melt the coldest heart. On camera, though, she turns into a light-bending lump of bulgy-eyed, highly reflective, cringing anti-photogeneticism.

Paco Collars and Fetching Tags recently collaborated to bestow upon Clover a beautiful new collar, and I wanted to thank them for the gift with a nice portrait of Her Royal Chihuahuaness in said article. Harder, I'm afraid, than it sounds.





There's the "use the flash" option, which creates the possessed demon effect:

















There's the "shoot while she plays" option, which creates the streaming high-speed effect:













There's the "wait for a pause" option, which gives you the menacing werewolf effect:















There's the "force her to stay where you put her" option, which gives you the beaten-and-cringing effect:













There's the "wait until she falls asleep" option, which creates the naked pillbug effect:














There's the "extreme closeup," which gives you the bobblehead effect:







And then there's the "hold the kong above the camera" option, which gives you extreme focus, and a picture you're actually not ashamed to share: