Believe it or not but I didn't use any additional light sources, reflectors or similar for the shots. I'm particularly happy with the effect that the big window gave me as a light diffuser and it would take quite some time to achieve the same effect and results with artificial light and extra diffusers. That's why I research the environment for natural light and 'natural' light modifiers before shooting on location.

Light Diffusing Film for windows

Many pets shed a great deal leading to frequent vacuuming of our homes and grooming of our animals. Some pets also leave more than unwanted hair in our homes. Some, whether due to old age, potty training, or dogs and cats who simply want to mark their territory, leave unpleasant urine odors and stains behind them, so we need a strategy for pet urine detection and removal.  Pet urine detection and removal can be a difficult problem to deal with. Our noses detect a foul smell but often have trouble finding the source to clean and remove the smell from our carpets, furniture, flooring and fabrics.  Both dogs and cats can be guilty of leaving urine stains in your home. Sometimes, we will notice a smell but are not able to track it visually.  This is where the use of a UV black light flash-lamp can be invaluable. It is an essential tool in the battle for pet odor detection and removal, but you need to chose the right tool for the job.

UV Light For Detecting Urine Residue – Locate Pet Urine Residue with Our UV Light – The image above features an actual lice on a strand of hair being made fluorescent by our UV Black light Flashlight.

Light diffusing Film for LED

Self adhesive lightDiffuserFilm

I noticed a really big window just next to the entrance when shooting at the Malte Restaurant in Brussels (Belgium) recently. Without much thinking I decided to (gently) drop all my light equipment I had with me and to use only the soft natural light from the big window which acted as a huge light diffuser. Unfortunately, you don't see the window on the pictures, but you can clearly see the diffused light and the overall effect.

Of course it’s not uncommon for stains to have been around for a while before they finally become unbearable and force you to act. So it’s important to have a tool powerful enough to spotlight older, dried urine stains, so nothing goes undetected.So a black light flash lamp is useful because when it is used in a dark room it will illuminate any residue contained on or in a fiber or on a solid material that is difficult to see by the human eye. It will immediately pinpoint areas that require cleaning. Chemical waste and other materials such as hair, lint, or fluids from foods will glow either white, yellow, or green when assessed under UV black light.  As we have covered in our previous discussions on detecting per urine here, before beginning to attempt to detect pet pee using a black light, it is important that the room you are working in be as dark as possible.  If you are unable to sufficiently block light by drawing blinds, closing doors, and turning out all lights in a room, it might be best to begin your efforts at night when it is already dark.  Many stains will simply not glow sufficiently for you to recognize them in a room that contains too much light hence you may miss some stains that need to be removed in order for the odor to be completely eliminated.

Diffuser windowkit

I particularly like soft and nicely diffused natural light during most of the photo shoots (unless I decide that hard light is what I need for a particular shoot) and I use windows as light diffusers more and more often.

Many pet health professionals recommend using a cleanser purposely formulated for cleaning cat and dog urine. Generally if your choice of cleanser is suitable for cat urine it will work fine with dogs too, as cat urine odors are stronger due to the natural pungency of the fluids secreted from cats.

Naturally one of the considerations of cleaning up after our pets is to use odor elimination products which are safe. After cleanup your pet will usually want to inspect the new smell which has suddenly appeared on the scene, so it’s important that they’re not exposed to harmful chemicals. This is why we recommend URI-CIDE as the perfect companion to our UV Black Light – a complete package for pet urine detection and odor / stain removal.

We love our pets. They bring such pleasure to our lives.  But with that pleasure can come the mess and work of detecting and removing pet urine and the subsequent odors.

Diydiffuser window

Lightdiffuser window

At every location and photo shoot, I like to firstly look around to see how I can make use of the available light and if there are any natural light-modifiers on the set already (I learned this from Bert Stephani). There can be various 'natural' light modifiers on location, like reflectors (light bouncing from the walls) or light diffusers. The pictures present the effect of the latter type and how a big window as a light diffuser was my best friend in my recent photo shoot.

How to find cat and/or dog urine with a UV Black light – Black light is also commonly known as ultraviolet, or UV, light, but how can light help us detect cat and dog urine?

– Detects pet urine on carpeting     – Detects pet urine on wood floors     – Works on concrete and tile     – Locates pet urine on upholstery, and many other surfaces

Last but not least, I would like to thank very much the owner of the Malte Restaurant in Brussels for letting us to use their premises for the photo shoot. You should definitely visit the place for the great food and ambient atmosphere, or at least to check out their big window to see how nicely it diffuses the light :)

As with the simple colored prism effect, water crystals break visible light into a layered light spectrum where red has a lower visible frequency than violet. A light frequency below red on the spectrum is termed infrared, whereas a frequency higher than violet is termed ultraviolet or UV. Common uses which you may be familiar with outside of the typical home environment are crime scenes, where black light is used to detect blood stains. And in the sense of pet urine detection, the two are very similar as pet urine glows in a similar frequency range to blood when exposed to the Ultra Violet light.