Funny Dog Photos: Learning How to take Humorous Pet Photography

The St. Mary’s County Camera Club had a themed competition of humorous photos last week. Humorous photos are challenging. You can either hope to get lucky when something you see strikes you as humorous or you need to create something funny. I decided to get more pet photography practice and learn about photographing humor at the same time. I enjoyed my photo attempts because I am very interested in humorous photos.


Some pictures are funny if something doesn’t quite make sense or fit in with the rest of the photo, there is an unexpected element. Human activities, clothing, silly hats, funny teeth or children’s toys look funny because we don’t normally associate them with pets. I’ve also seen photos that are funny because something unfamiliar happens, like a photo of a dog floating in the air with balloons attached to his body or dogs waterskiing.

I photographed a Westie “playing” the piano, reading a book and driving a car. My first place photo was a Westie at the piano. The original photo was mildly funny, but the addition of the piece of music called “Unleashed Melody” added an extra funny element. The dog reading a book received an honorable mention. The pictures were all challenging, because the dog was in a wiggly mood.

To see some wonderful humorous dog photos visit photos by Eliot Erwitt or William Wegman. I give my thanks to Andrew Darlow for his pet photo advice.