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Promoting the Worldwide Advancement of Veterinary Dermatology

Veterinary Dermatology Atlas

Veterinary dermatology is a very visual discipline. Distribution patterns of skin disease and lesion recognition form an essential part of any dermatology training. However, gaining access to sufficient numbers of uncommon and rare skin conditions to enhance the learning of interns, residents and veterinarians with an interest in dermatology can be challenging. The World Association for Veterinary Dermatology (WAVD) Veterinary Dermatology Atlas, generously sponsored by Elanco Elanco and made possible by the gifts of photographic material from the global veterinary dermatology community, hopes to increase accessibility to an invaluable educational resource to further the mission of the WAVD, i.e., to promote the worldwide advancement of veterinary dermatology. We are happy to accept veterinary dermatology photographs/images/videos on any subject from any species from colleagues. We suggest following these guidelines for some tips on how to take professional photographs. Photographs/images will be watermarked so that their origin can be traced. Authors will be acknowledged on each image, retain copyright of the photograph and give WAVD permission to use the images for educational purposes such as teaching or research. Please find the image submission form below, and e-mail completed form and photographs/images to dermatology@wavd.org. If you have a question or the files are too large, please contact us at dermatology@wavd.org directly.
Image Submission Form

David Duclos' Guidelines for Clinical Photography

General Guidelines

To take good photos, keep in mind these things:

  1. Prepare the subject
  2. Check the background
  3. Pay attention to lighting
  4. Focus – this is critical, an image not in focus can’t be fixed
  5. Pay attention to the edges, things in the edges cause distractions
  6. Be aware of Zoom

Subject

  1. Position the subject in the center of the image
  2. Clear the surroundings of clutter, mess, or anything that will distract from the subject
    1. Background should support your subject, not distract from it – the key thing to remember is to eliminate distractions
    2. Avoid floors in the background, as floors often have a mix of colors and textures that distract from the subject.
    3. Human bare fingers are very distracting, nothing worse than fingernails with worn nail polish, or damaged nails
    4. Tables, garbage cans, clinical machines (anesthesia machines, monitors, wires, etc.)
    5. All of these take away from the subject
    6. When taking clinical photographs, we document a clinical condition, disease, or disease progression, but we also have an audience looking at the photo.  We may need to position the subject to tell the story.
    7. Background—If you have a background you can’t get rid of, you need a lens that allows you to get farther away and zoom in, and then use a wide aperture like f1.2 or 2.8.  A lens like a 24-70 /2.8 will allow you to back away from the subject and zoom in and shoot at f2.8. An open aperture will blur the background.
    8. Use solid-color backgrounds like White, Blue, Green or Black.  Photography backgrounds are available online or at photo stores. I recommend cloth backgrounds for animals so you can wash them as needed.
  3. Wipe instruments
  4. Avoid bare hands, wear gloves, and clean away blood from instruments or gloves
  5. If you must explain things like, “Disregard these things…” or “I tried to take a better picture, but it is a little dark…” etc., this says your image is not excellent.
  6. Pay attention to what your audience will see; it only takes a few seconds to make your picture great.  When you look through the viewfinder or on the camera’s viewer screen, think of the person who will see this image. What do you want them to see?  Garbage cans? Background trash such as wires, dirt, messy surroundings, tables, chairs, and chair legs? Fingers with various things on them, etc.
  7. Take a snapshot of the scene and think about what you can do to improve the picture, such as changing the background, removing unwanted elements, adjusting the camera angle, or adjusting the light. Pay attention to the edge of the frame; a stray human foot or something will take away from the photo

Lighting

  1. Lighting is critical in photography
  2. If you use existing light, you must know how to use a grey card to set your white balance. White Balance tells your camera sensor that this card is grey under this light source.
  3. Position your subject so it is evenly lit, with no harsh shadows or lights
  4. Flash is necessary in clinical photography
  1. For macro lenses, use a ring flash
  2. For whole body photos, use a bounce flash or umbrellas to filter the light
  3. Flash bounced directly on the subject will cause harsh lights and shadows
  4. Do not use flash with your cell phone; they cannot separate the flash angle from the camera lens angle.

Zoom

  1. Two types of zooms, Digital and Optical
  2. Digital zoom is like taking an image, cutting a small piece out of the image, and throwing the periphery away.
  3. The small piece will have less density, making it grainy and poor in quality
  4. Optical Zoom uses different glass lenses to get the zoom so you will keep the quality or resolution.
  5. Cell phones will have optical zoom, like 2X, 3X, or 5X.  If you Google your phone and type in optical zoom next to the name of your phone, you will find out if your phone has optical zoom and how much it has.  Anything more than the limit of your phone’s optical zoom will be digital zoom
  6. Zoom with your feet. If possible, get closer to get much better pictures.