Every urn we paint starts the same way: with the photos a family chooses. There is no "wrong" photo to send, but a few thoughtful ones help our artists capture the details that made your companion unmistakably themselves. Here is what helps most — and what to do if your photo album is thin.
The three most useful views
If you can, choose one photo from each of these angles:
- A straight-on face. This is the most important view — it shows the shape of the face, the set of the eyes, and how the ears sit.
- A side profile. Profiles show muzzle length, ear shape, and the outline of the head that a front view hides.
- A full-body shot. Full-body photos help us keep proportions natural: how long the back is, how the chest stands, how the tail carries.
Even two of these are plenty. If you have one clear, straight-on photo and nothing else, start there — that single image does most of the work.
Everyday photo tips that need no camera skills
You do not need a professional camera, just pictures that look like your pet to you:
- Prefer natural light. Photos taken near a window or outdoors are softer and show true coat color.
- Skip heavy filters. Warm filters are lovely on Instagram but they shift the colors our artists paint from.
- Choose sharpness over charm. A slightly boring but focused photo is more useful than an artistic blur.
- Look for markings. A close-up of a white blaze, one floppy ear, or the orange patch over an eye helps us get the details right.
- Show the eye color if you can. It is one of the details families notice first in a portrait.
What if you only have a few photos — or they are old or blurry?
This is more common than you might think, and it is not a problem. Our artists are used to working from whatever a family has: old prints, screenshots, photos taken at odd angles. We combine the markings, colors, and breed cues we can see, and we gladly work from your memory notes — a sentence like "she always had one ear up" genuinely changes a portrait.
And because we send a preview of the portrait before firing, nothing is a surprise. You will see the face we have painted while the piece can still be adjusted — that is the moment to say "her chin was a little wider," and we will refine it together before the kiln.
How to send your photos
When you order, upload 2–5 photos right on the product page, before you add the urn to your cart. Your files stay attached to your order, so nothing gets lost between your message and our studio. Prefer to talk it through first? Message us on WhatsApp or email — we usually reply within 24 hours, and we can suggest which photos to pick.
A note on privacy
Your photos are used only to make your urn. We never publish them, never share them, and never use a family's pet in our marketing without asking first.
The photo you choose does not need to be perfect. It only needs to remind you of them — that is the photo we want to paint from.