On March 28th I wrote about the use of internet marketing to sell alpacas and the fact that last year fully 43% of alpacas were sold over the internet sight unseen (so to speak).

I put up a little test just for fun of two alpacas.

One of the alpacas was Snowmass Perfection and is worth $155,000 the other was a gelded boy worth $250.

Of the replies I received half got them the right way round and half got them the wrong way round.

The point is that internet photographs although better than nothing are not always an accurate guide to what an alpaca is going to look like in the fleece.

Since then a few people have e-mailed to ask about taking better alpaca photographs. Obviously there are books you can read and probably even courses at local colleges.

Basically you will need a digital camera, a pc and some photo software.

You really don't need to spend hundreds of dollars on Photoshop there are some very effective software packages that cost very little or are even free. You should get some basic software with your camera.

I usually take pictures in the early morning or late afternoon it makes quite a difference.

Here is an example of how an average alpaca shot can be improved.




The first step is to "cut out" the part of the picture we are interested in. This is called cropping and takes about 30 seconds.



Then I can use a repair tool to take out the other alpaca and its shadow.
I can even remove the house on the hill and the white fence. So there are no visual distractions. This part took about two minutes.



Just a simple example to give you some idea of how an alpaca picture can be improved.

Adrian Stewart