Many people think that pictures of animals are just for children, but boy are they all mistaken. They might look at cute animal photos when they are small, but as they grow, they assume that, like cuddly stuffed bears, these pictures of animals are best left to childhood. Oh sure, trying to be cute, their boss might leave animal photos up around the office as a pleasant, if boring decoration, but no one ever thinks about these pictures at all. I really do think that this is a great shame. As a professional animal photographer, it should be no surprise that I like animal photos, but the reasons might be things that you have never thought about.

One of the greatest things about animal photos is that they really can capture any emotion that you can think about. People are often reserved about showing what is going on inside them, but reserve is not really anything that shows up too frequently among the members of the animal kingdom. In animal photos, we have the chance to see practically any emotion, from the tenderness of a mother cat caring for her young, to the fierceness of a lion pouncing for the kill, to the sly disdain of a baboon, leaving its friends behind for new fun.

Many people believe that we are not really seeing these expressions in animal photos, and that what we are seeing is just a reflection of our own emotions that we want to pin on animals, but anyone who has spent any time with animals at all knows that this is simply not true. When we look at animal photos, we are looking out at our own emotions, not because we put them there, but because animals are really very strikingly similar to us. Dogs really do feel loyalty and friendliness quite often. You can tell if you have a pet dog what the expressions in dog animal photos really mean. Cats really are quite evil and sneaky, not because their tiny, creepy eyes look that way in animal photos, but because that is their natural temperament. Animals are less intelligent than we are, and are more driven by instinct, but that does not change the fact that they feel real emotions the same as we do. It does not take animal photos to show most of us the truth of this statement, but looking at pictures of animals can help to confirm it again and again.