Ready for a Close-Up
According to Vincent J. Musi, a photographer who specializes in animal portraiture and has shot everything from a honeybee to an elephant for National Geographic, there are secrets to getting every animal to look its best. For a series of in-your-face portraits of big cats, for instance, an assistant held up raw beef on a stick to get just the right look from a lion at the Houston Zoo. But the snow leopard wasn’t such an easy mark. “I discovered I had to sing to it,” Musi says, “a cross between Frank Sinatra and Elvis Costello.” When it comes to photographing dogs (Musi’s main focus these days), the bag of tricks is less complicated: squeaky balls, plush animals, and an oversize pack of bacon-flavored treats. His secret weapon, however, is his…
