Hi everyone, I have just found this great forum and I am really looking forward to learning everything I can from the experts here!

Up until now I have dabbled in pet photography, specifically for obtaining reference photos for my clients for Pet Portrait artwork, but I really want to expand the photography side of my business in 2007 and hopefully do event photography as well in the future.

Initially, I am starting slowly and have been doing freebie on location outdoor shoots, I have always prefered animals being themselves in a natural setting, but at some point I will venture into a portable studio set-up (whatever that might involve!) to take to the client's house. I want to keep it as simple as possible...lol but I don't know if that is even possible!

One of my existing (art) client's owns a dog grooming salon and we have discussed a joint venture where I would go to her salon for the day and take photos of the dogs that she grooms...it sounds good in theory ie she already has a sound customer base but I am not quite sure how to go about it. I would love some advice if anyone has done something similar?

I was thinking along the lines of giving her a Voucher to give to her clients as a thankyou for their patronage, and the voucher would be for a free sitting plus one print (I would display the photos on my website for the owner to choose from and hopefully order more;)

There are two locations for the photo shoot - across the road there is a lovely park, but the owner would need to take the dog over there (liability issues), alternatively inside the salon which is brightly lit with a full window the length of the shop as well as internal lights, but I would obviously need a background and some lighting and I have no idea where to start so would appreciate some advice on that if anyone has any tips they are willing to share:)

Here are a couple of photos I have taken recently, I'm on a steep learning curve with photoshop at the moment as well, so I think I could probably improve them a bit when I figure out what I am doing with PS!









Cheers

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

Welcome to the forum. It is great to see new aspiring folks coming in the door. If there are things we can be helpful for, please let us know.

James

Thanks for the welcome James!

These are really nice Michelle! I hope your idea at the groomer works out. I was just thinking, it would be ideal to combine a grooming/photo business, you'd be assured of nicely groomed pets for your session too!

Your images are very nice, to give them a little more of a boost I would maybe suggest some sharpening and maybe some highlight/shadows to the lab. What camera equipment do you use?

I mainly take photos for my art work too and PeggySue here is a wonderful artist as well. Do you have a web site I'd love to see some of you work.

Thanks for the suggestions Dee Dee, I do need to sit down and do some pp on my better photos so I can get my portfolio together. LOL and I must leanr how to use the clone tool to get rid of the twig that is growing out of my cat's ear!

At the moment I am using a prosumer camera - a Canon S3is, the zoom is excellent and the manual settings are all pretty good and it prints up to 8x10 beautifully, and apparently larger but I havn't tried that yet, but not having a professional dslr is the main reason I am not jumping into pro photography too soon.

So far everyone has been very impressed with their pet photos so I am hoping that will be enough to get me started towards an entry level Canon DSLR in the next month or two -I am looking at a 400d/Rebel XTi and a decent lens or two to start with.

Of course I would love to go to the next level dslr but as all income will go directly back into the business, I am hoping to fund most of my equipment purchases as I go along and want a dslr ASAP:) I figure that the 400D is a decent enough body and I can put more money into lenses as I go along.

Oh yeah, you have probably already seen some of my art - my username on WC is darlingart and I usually hang out in the AW forum:)

Actually Dee Dee, it was your experience of adding to your equipment list as you go along that made me realise that it was possible to build a pet photography business that way - the advice from most pro-photogs is don't bother starting until you have outlayed the money for all the proper equipment.

Its kind of like saying to an artist - don't bother planning to be an oil painter if you can only afford a graphite pencil. While having the proper equipment/training/experience might get you where you want to go quicker but passion, determination, and commitment are just as important in the long run:)

Michelle

Hi Michelle!
Yes now I know who you are! I had lost your post on WC about the photography but just went back and found it...you had a couple of more questions that I hadn't seen (sorry!). You are an awesome artist!!

You had asked about the equipment I use, maybe you have figured that out but if not I use the canon 20D and MKII. Lenses are tamron 28-75 2.8, and the canons 70-200 2.8, 200 1.8 and 300 2.8. I just last week got my first lighting equipment (alien bees) and am having a lot of fun!

One thing that surprised me as well when I first got on some photography forums to learn this stuff, was some of the photographers who scold the newbies for wanting to buy nice stuff. (???) I still don't get that...wasn't asking their permission or their advice on whether or not I should spend my money, didn't see how that was any of their business (thusly, I am not married LOL my dog is always happy for me when I buy a new lens! ) but just asking questions, trying to learn. That is why I like this forum you don't see that attitude here. A little over a year ago I knew nothing about photography. I could have learned on cheaper equipment but it was easier to learn on the good stuff and I have no regrets for buying what I did. Now I have most of it paid for by doing photo shoots, events and farm shoots (and if I add in the art I've made and sold from the photos I've taken, everything IS paid for) and I plan to do shoots with the new lighting equipment as well, at least until it is paid for and then I can only do shoots when I want to, I really want to experiment with artsy things.

I have gotten awesome shots of horses and dogs this year at farms and friends, that I will be painting from (the Friesian running on the beach I've been posting on WC is one, if I had not gotten this camera equipment, I never would have had these reference photos to paint that which is my goal in the end. My cousin and I went to the beach for 2 days with her Friesian gelding and Andalusian mare, and I took a ton of photos).

So don't let anyone tell you you can't do this. It's not easy but you can work your way up. I have tons to learn yet too and have learned a lot on this forum.

Would you mind if I took one or two of your photos above and did some photoshopping?

I remembered that you used a Canon system but not which one, so thanks for posting your equipment list. LOL personally I would jump in feet first with a much better dslr and lens system than the 400D and let it pay for itself later, but three kids and one husband are a big reality check $ wise;)

Reference material is definitely a big issue as well, eventually I would like to sell prints of my artwork but I don't want to do that with ref photos from WC (or anywhere else).

I would LOVE to see what you can do with my photos in PS - I am learning slowly, most days there are just not enough hours to fit everything in! Do you have a 'standard' list of things you do in PS to every photo or just what is needed on an individual basis?

I must run and get dinner on (see never enough time!)

btw I totally envy your 2 days at the beach with the horses, talk about heaven!

Michelle

Hi Michelle

Just wait till you get to the point where you have to figure out pricing! That nearly drove me nuts and I'm still amending

Have fun with it. I just started my dog photog business here in Melbourne and it's a big learning curve

Here is what I would have done with these two. The kitty I just did some USM sharpening and upped the contrast a little.

On the lab I started with shadow/highlights, then worked in layers and sharpened the dog, and the background to a lesser extent than the dog. I cropped it a little (not sure that is the best crop though) and I used the burn tool to darken and bring up some details in the highlight areas of her coat. I also burned the background to solid black as I thought the bits of light showing were distracting. Then I burned the lower right and left edges as well as the dogs body a bit so the lightest part of the image is around her head which is the center of interest. I also burned out the area of her rump and tail that had a shadow cast over it.

And yes you are right, for me anyway, I do different things for different photos.

Wow! Thanks for doing that Dee Dee, they both look so much better! I definitely need to get a handle on photoshop, I havn't used the burn tool so I will go and hunt down a tutorial on using that one:)

Thanks Tess, I am dreading the pricing side of things - I have done it for my pet portraits artwork and that was hard enough...mind you the good thing about photography compared to artwork is that I am much less likely to underestimate the time it will take to create:)

I had a look at your website and your photos are really beautiful! I am sure you are going to do really well with your business. In particular I really love the drama and intensity of the ones with the black backgrounds like the newfie, dobe and springer spaniel. Can I ask if you are using a black backround for these or are you getting the effect in post processing?

Michelle