Have you ever looked at a picture you took on a bright day and said "hmmm I look a little green around the gills." Well that is likely from colour cast.  When the day is bright the light will bounce off the green grass and cast a green colour under your chin.  Even if you are in the shadows but near a spot where the sun is hitting the grass or a brightly coloured building.  The color can be reflected onto you aka the subject.  So if you have ever been on a shoot with me and I get a perplexed look on my face, it's because I am trying to figure something out.  That something is often a hmmm how can I get rid of that weird color creeping in without disturbing the subject.  You see it can be easy enough to fix a color cast with some fill light or a reflector but that depends on your subject. 

A person will sit and let you pop a reflector in to bounce some clean light into the weird green chin shadow but a dog probably will not.  So much about pet photography can be about chance when it comes to a pose.  Not all pups are natural posers, they maybe squirmy or nervous. So a reflector might cause some weirdness.  Often it becomes a situation of can I use something around me to avoid the colour cast?  Maybe a side walk to bounce some light up or if I am in the shadows and the sun is hitting a near by neutral colored building I can position myself to that it is filling in like a reflector.   Sometimes it is just easiest on everyone if I fix it later in photoshop.

I know it might not look like it but there is usually a million things going through my mind while I shoot.  All while I am trying to make pleasant chit chat and engage my subject.   Why am I sharing all of this?  Well it is kind of interesting and I want you to know what to pay attention to when you are taking your own images.  Whether with your phone or your camera. A little critical thinking will help you see your images before you even compose them.  It's all in the details.

Here is are a couple of examples of color cast.  As you can see colour cast can happen in studio with bright backgrounds.  It is easier to control setting with fill light, angle of light and reflectors but can still happen to some degree.  And some colours are worse than others. This teal for example is one of the trickiest in studio.

The last images are not colour cast but the little dog did get some green feet running in the dewy fresh cut grass.