Marketing to dogs

[Heika Werner]

Couldn't resist the title. Sorry.

But does anyone here do dog/pet portraits? How does one get started, and what are some techiques for marketing this type of serivce?

Thanks.

[Oikku]

Hi!

That is what I mostly do ... I shoot in shows and different kinds of competitions and also in my own small studio + at clients houses or other places they want... I am pretty well known in this area in Finland (actually I am almost the only one who does this in larger scale) and it is pretty easy to sell nowadays. In film time it was a lot more difficult because of the expenses. For those who have not ordered a shooting session I put pics on my website and they can choose from there and then order by e-mail. Have a look at www.oikkus.com and take the "oikku´s DigiPc" -side. In the main pare there are also some links to some shows or competitions I´ve shot lately.

My own breeds are German Shepherd and Swedish Vallhund, but I´ve been shooting most breeds by now. The challenge is to know enough of every breed or the job dogs are doing to get the right kind of pics. If you are not a dog person, you needed to study different breeds and what is the right way to take a pic of each. For example, most breeds are wanted their ears up and mouth a bit open but then on the other hand there are breeds that must have ears along the neck and in some cases (like pekingese) the mouth really must be shut etc... very interesting world but if you want to be good in this, you must know a lot of dogs in general and different breeds aswell.

Greets, Oikku

[mikej]

Oikku covers it pretty well. It's the same here in the states, except it's not so open for someone to get into dog show photography... not that I'd want to do that. Not the shooting that the photographers do running around from ring to ring shooting the winning dogs, handler/owner and judge for the offical pictures. Those guys have to work too hard. And though there are some very good ones out there (I know a number of them) many offical show photographers do not have that great of a reputation amoung the dog owners.

Where I made my money was shooting in other areas, like during the actual judging. Rarely do you see anyone other than maybe someone from the dog family shooting with a point and shoot or video camera at ring side. I get shots of them moving around the ring and getting their awards and of the judge checking the dog over. Most of the regular dog shows won't bring any money this way, but some of the specialties where the competition is more, uh, dog eat dog, will.

How I really got into it was I started taking pictures for club newsletters. Dog clubs are non-profit and about the only thing you will get is your name with the picture. But after I had had a bunch of my pictures published people started asking me to take pictures of their dogs at the shows. Although I've been asked by a number of breeds, mostly I concentrate on several, mostly of the working and herding breeds since we have dogs in those areas.

Now where I really do well and where you won't see much competition is at the agility, herding, ring sport and other dog events. I find conformation very boring (and very political) but love agility and herding and last year I started doing ring sport for a club in the area. Rarely do you find anyone taking good pictures of dogs working and competing in events like this. And if you can do a fast turn around of prints, you can sell them at the shows. And you don't usually have the problem with some "offical" photographers getting upset that another photographer is taking pictures like you do at conformation shows.

The thing about doing agility and herding is of course they have to have those events in your area or where you can go. And you have to learn how to act around the dogs when they are competeing. You don't want to do anything that will distract the dog. No flash. Even when the owner gives me permission, I won't use flash at a event trial. Also you have to learn not to move or stare at the dog when they are near you. You learn to walk around a ring and pause if the dog runs near where you are at. With herding, you have to be more careful because sheep head towards any human they can because they know humans will protect them from the big bad dogs. So if you are near the fence, they could all bunch up against the fence trying to get around you, which can be very embarrising when all the attention is on you by everyone else.

I did get into doing dog portraits, but I ran into one big problem... lack of a place to do it. I couldn't do it in our house because at the time we had 8 dogs and even if we put them in other parts of the house, they would still raise a ruckus, which would be bothersome to us and any dogs that were there to get their picture taken. So I tried doing it at other people's houses. The response was good, but I found most of them had even less space to set up for formal portraits than I did in my living room studio space of 11x14. Either their ceiling was too low to set up my lights, they didn't have space enough to set up my lights and the dog, or there just wasn't a good place to set up a background and lights and the dog(s). So I gave up on that idea. If I knew I'd be doing enough business to make it worth while, I had thought about renting a small house and setting that up as a studio. Or leasing office space. But since I also work a full time job, I didn't want to commit to a payment that I might not be able to cover with what I was bringing in. So if you have a place for them to come to you, all the better.

But first you have to get your name out there. Some people go to pet stores and do thyme shooting... christmas, easter, holloween, etc., for the store. Usually the store is using you to bring people in and you get what pictures you sell. Sometimes you pay them for the space. When they are using it as a promotion to bring people in, it's better because they do all the advertising and put up posters.

There is money in doing pet and dog photography, owners are very proud of their animals and will pay for good portraits. Especially show people. You just have to get your name out there and known. Finding a couple of All Breed Clubs can really help you. Or concentrate on a few different breeds in your area until you get better known and then brance out. It can be done, but like just about anything, it takes effort on your part.

Mike

[Oikku]

Most photographers don´t count shooting dogs , but at least I have found it pretty interesting world... well, I´ve been part of it most of my life . Agility is one pretty well selling, but usually agilitypeople want just small prints.. as shooting target it is quite challenging - lots of shadows and usually it is hard to find a good location to shoot... So, every year I go to aprx 5-8 competitions just to shoot the speed. Every time there is someone who wants a to order some pics aswell. I put my pics in my pages (just straight out of the camera) for people to see and to order.


Another interesting and FAST dogshooting target is greyhoundraces, but from these I haven´t got so much orders - I´ve been wondering why, because I myself find some pics taken in those events pretty good.

This pic is taken for my biggest job so far, I illustrated a book (189 pages, 170 pics) that tells about different kinds of working dogs - there are 15 of them and I drove more than 5000 km`s to get some shots of every dog in there. Very interesting project.

Dogs and children are always good targets - I quess I have sold almost every piece I´ve taken of this target . One just need to ask the permission from the parents and then afterwards show the pics to them


Mostly I am asked to take a standing pic, people need these for different purposes but mostly to ad their studdogs in magazines etc. That is the difficult part... one really needs to know about anatomy and how different kinds of breeds need to be shown.


Every time I shoot this standing portrait, I finally ask if we also took a head portrait. They very rarely ask for it but almost every time they buy one when it is taken! Highly recommended


There are also several other kinds of dogsports to shoot, but maybe you already got bored to these doggypics?

Greets, Oikku
www.oikkus.com

[Oikku]

Ok, a new try to that one missing greyhound pic...


Oikku

[Oikku]

Sorry, these are whippets, not greyhounds :-[

Oikku

[Oikku]

Forgot to say, there is also the World Dog Press Association (WDPA), that helps in getting in to shows and other events. As a member (you can register as a freelancer aswell - they ask for some proof of your work earlier) you get in easier and the president Karl Donwill is very helpfull and arranges accredition and even hotels etc for big events like Crufts, World Winner Shows and European Winner Shows. Have a look at 123dog.net . As a member there is also a possibility to sell your work to dogowners and magazines!

Greets, Oikku

[ellette]

Dachshund races would be a good place to go for taking pictures and then selling them. Dachshund owners tend to be a bit nuts (it is ok...my mom owns 2 and my sister owns 2 dachshund/chihuahua mixes) and desperately in love with their dogs and anything having to do with them.

I used to do portraits (drawing on the computer, with pastels, and with charcoal...as in the picture below) by request. I started out doing it for some people I knew on an email list for beagle owners. It ended up branching out. I did some work for a couple different rescue groups, and somehow other people heard about me. Pretty soon I was getting more requests than I could handle at the time so I had to shut it down completely to give myself a break.

One idea...offer to do free photos of dogs for a local pound. Then, offer to do "after" pictures when the dog is placed and give one copy to the pound to use in newsletters or online but sell to the dog owner if they want.

Here is my portrait I did in charcoal of a dog named Murphy. Forgive the bad scan of the drawing. The drawing was just black and white charcoal on sand coloured matte board, but it lost a lot of the detail in being scanned.


I haven't started up doing dog photography portraits yet, though I figure I will before too long.

Oh, and I do know that many families want to have a portrait that includes their pets, but so many of the studios out there don't allow for dogs or cats. Either that or the family doesn't feel their pet would be well behaved enough outside of their home. Maybe you could start doing portrait sessions "on location" for people who love their dogs but have spoiled them to the point they can't take them anywhere.

Sara

[llpoolej]

Oikku, you portraits are amazing and an inspiration! I would love to take 1/2 as good of shots as those. Elette, your drawings are wonderful, I can see how they caught on so quickly.

I would like to get into animal photography, as, well, I like animals better than people most of the time I am pretty good at horse photography, but I know what people are looking for. It is much harder with each breed of dog, how they are to be stacked, how they want them captured when moving ect; I am going to work on that. My friend shows great danes and chinese cresteds(her SIX year old is burning up the conformation rings with her chinese crested bitch, is beating pro handlers and has won 3 minors and one major!) We are going to take the dogs out to the lake and experiment with stacked photos and some portrait style ones

Here is one I was lucky to catch of my daughter and our whippet. The couch is really busy and clashes with her dress, I do like how it turned out though at least the exposure and expression. Too bad my couch isn't alot more conservative

[Alice Morrison]

Elette, that's a great portrait.

[Maverick510]

I love my dog

[JDArt]

Wow, I haven't looked at this thread in a while. Some *great* dog photos. Can some of you folks resize them, though, so that we aren't scrolling left-to-right?

[ellette]

Sorry, I didn't see your post.

Thank you. I love to draw but photography takes so much less time and with two small kids I tend to do WAY more photography than drawing.

Sara

Originally Posted by Alice Morrison

Elette, that's a great portrait.

[topdog]

There is a photographer in town that takes pet dog portraits in her studio. And she does a nice job. The other way to become known is to be part of the dog show fancy, be it conformation or performance. Most dog people are busy with their dogs and are clueless about photography, however, in the age of digital pictures, everyone can be a photographer provided they have the eye for the picture. I managed to sell the BOB picture to the owner who had a Cannon EOS, I was using a Nikon CoolPix 8800. He bought my picture because he thought it was better. By the time he got his picture from me, the dog was cropped in and the lead on the grass was gone. Thank you Photoshop.

The second picture is the first one ever taken with my Nikon D70. It is not sharp enough, the lighting was bad, but the picture itself speaks volumes to a dog person. What a great team of handler and dog! So more than the camera, you must have the eye for the animal and how it should look in the photograph to best set it off. Just like anything else I guess.

The other way I got into marketing dogs : is through the capability to develop websites for the dog clubs (who do not pay for my work) and I am also the main photographer to boot. This is something I enjoy and I am learning as I go. Dog people are also famous for having the photographer shoot pictures but then not follow up with an order. The picture better be fabulous and they need it for an ad they want to place. Most Kennel Clubs have professional dog photographers do their work. But the specialty clubs will hire a "non professional". But you should do it for the love of taking dog pics, it won't put food on your table.