Summer in the Phun household means one other thing. Yours truly has to watch himself.

I’m no longer Master of my domain.

Well, not exactly. Beside my bandwidth for the internet, I have to share everything.

My wife and my kids are home. Whoop-Tee-Doo!

The General is home all the time. Since I’m just a Major and outranked, my mantra is “Right away Sweetie.”

She makes the general decisions and I make the major ones.

Good thing she doesn’t read this blog.

All kidding aside, is there such a thing as too much quality time?

Gabriel tries to position the cats for her sister. Julie waits patiently for the “talent CT” to finish grooming.

I dunno. Maybe you can tell me.

We all know the key to maintaining the peace in a household with kids is keeping the kids occupied. Perhaps this problem is unique to the US when school is out and kids are home driving their parents batty.

So I have to dream up some activities for my 11 and 14 year-old.

Pet Photography For Kids

CT “Chicken Thief ” poses with my daughter while my son takes their picture in the open shade of my backyard. If you have a platform or chair without a back, drape the backdrop over it so that it removes the distraction of the platform or chair.

Pet Photography for your kids need not be difficult and doesn’t have to cost a lot.

Before I continue, I need to stress this is a suggestion for fun activity for your kids.

The last time I said architectural photography is not difficult, I stepped on some toes and received not so nice comments.

That is a good thing. I appreciate passion.

Without passion, this blog will be so boring.

Most of the things you need are common household items.

• A backdrop– a bedsheet that has no patterns will work.
• Clothespins or better yet a some strong clamps or duct tape for attaching backdrop
• Something to hang or drape the backdrop on. This can be makeshift poles stuck in ground
• A tripod minimizes camera shake for point and shoot cameras don’t have fast lenses.
• An area of open shade
• A reflector
• A digital camera & your computer and some sort of Photo editing application
• Last but not least a pet.

If  your kids have friends in your neighborhood, this can be even more fun.

Be sure an adult accompanies those arriving for pet portraits to help with animal control.

In any case, this is a better lesson on entrepreneurial ventures than the proverbial lemonade stand and a whole lot more fun.

Have your kids make a sign. The price is just a suggestion.

Tailor it to your own needs and send me a cut of your action.

At the very least, tell me how this works for you by commenting, it’s free and I never spam anyone.

Pet Photography while you wait.

50 cents a digital file or $5 for a 5 x 7 print.

Basically your child will be doing the work. You’ll just assist by setting everything up.

You’ll run the computer. Download the images and save the files to a thumb drive which the clients can download to their computer.

Tofu and CT together for a portrait. Tofu kept me busy the last few years of her life. She had bladder problems and was very liberal with her spraying especially in the garage. Drove me nuts, but I loved her. CT is getting up there in age. He doesn’t hear and see so well these days but is still feisty enough to stand up to the occasional stray dog that comes by his domain.

A couple years back, my buddies John Welsh, Carlos Puma and I organized such an event in collaboration with Reggie Woolery, UC Riverside’s Museum of Photography.

It was a lot of fun because we had a variety of animals and we got some very nice help.

We were even featured on the local tv station.