The person behind the page told Bored Panda it was their love for animals that inspired this fun online project. "I've been running a cat page for very long but wanted to post other animals as well," they said. "I will probably create some more animal pages in the future as well, but with different themes."
The founder of the page hasn't set any criteria for choosing the pictures, everything they post is pretty random.
However, they think that the community of 'Important Animal Images' is what separates the page from the rest. "I don't have words to describe [these] followers or family, whatever word you'd like to use, they are the ones who make this group special. I don't know how far this page will go but I'll try my best to work for the betterment of stray animals through it. I plan to start doing this very soon."
If you too want to begin photographing animals but don't know where to start, your first model can be your pet! UK dog photographer Rhian White told Bored Panda that her number one advice for every beginner is to stay patient. Both with yourself and your lack of knowledge and experience as well as with things that are out of your control, like other animals and people popping over to say hi during a shoot outside.
"I can't talk about other pets because my specialty is dogs but there are lots of challenges when it comes to photographing them, specifically in the outdoors, which is what I do," White said. "First of all, there's the weather. You might like a nice sunny day, but it might be, especially in the UK, really cloudy and windy."
"Another thing is location. You could go to a park or the beach, and there might be too many distractions for the dog, whether they like to play with other pups or they're just fearful of busy places, there's lots of noise, lots of things going on."
White has also had plenty of shoots where her subjects weren't really interested in posing. "When a dog isn't motivated, it becomes very difficult to get them engaged," she explained. If you end up in a similar situation, the photographer suggests taking out a ball or a toy, maybe even some food, and try to get the pup to cooperate using rewards. You can also ask other people (or even dogs!) for some extra help.
Remember, you just have to learn what that particular model likes the most and go with it.
That being said, there are limits. "Some dogs can be a bit nervous of, like I said, busy places, or even me, you know, a stranger. So I have to really play it by ear and go with the flow in terms of what that dog is happy with," Rhian White said. "Every shoot that I do is tailored to that dog and what they're comfortable with. Never get a dog to do what they don't want to do."
Rhian said it's hard enough to photograph one pet, but sometimes you want to get a few of them in the same frame. "The more dogs that you add into the mix, the more challenging it becomes. One time, I photographed seven dogs in one go. And that's very, very difficult, especially to get an action shot of them running together. I mean, it's nearly impossible." Again, patience!
"I think the best thing for people to do is just go out and practice, even if you get nothing, just keep going."
However, you should always remember that the animal comes first, and pictures second. "That way, you'll get a happy dog in the pictures," Rhian White said.
"I've noticed some people are not patient with themselves and they're not really very patient with the dogs either. They get very frustrated ... A lot of people say 'My dog won't pose for a picture.' Or 'It won't look at the camera.' Well, to that, my first question is this: when you try to take a picture of them, how long do you take to do it? If the answer is a couple of minutes, that's a couple of minutes too long! You need to take a couple of seconds and then give the animal a really big reward. Whatever it is that they want, just give it to them! Then they'll learn that you taking pictures of them is actually a really fun thing to do."