 Linda Finstad |
Pet Portrait Business Hi , please can anyone out there give me advice on marketing pet photography? Also what should I charge to go to someones place to photograph their animals. I have spent last summer photographing riders at horse shows, uploading them to my web site for sale. But this is a lot of work and reaps very few rewards. i would like to secure real bookings that gaurantee sales. please help
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Tracy S. Moore |
Hi Linda, I have a friend who has just recently started this type business too! She was able to show and display one of her photos at a local vets office which has turned into a great place to recruit business. I'd start there and then maybe at local shelters. The ad costs at these places should be minimal and you will be able to reach hundreds.
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Danielle E. Rutter |
Linda, I recently had to advertise a pet photography event for the portrait studio I worked at. So I went to a nearby pet groomer and gave them flyers. They were thrilled! They said their customers were always asking about things like that. Check your yellow pages and see if there's any in the area. :)
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W. |
Complementary to Danielle's suggestion: you could make a deal with a local pet shop to set up there on a Saturday to make one free photo of each interested customer with his/her pet (write down their (eMail) addresses!). Hand out dozens of your business cards.
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Linda Finstad |
Thanks Guys, I really appreciate all the great ideas, our local pet stores (petsmart and petcetera) have their own in house photo stuio's but I hadnt thought of the vet's offices. thanx again
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Irene Troy |
One more idea: try looking up pet daycare places in your area. A friend of mine owns a pet daycare business and one day when I happened to be there doing pics of one of her own animals, a client asked if I would do some pics of her dog. One thing led to another and I soon had lots of people asking the same thing. People who send their dogs to daycare often have some disposable income that they willing use to keep their pets happy and they often will pay for a good portrait of their pet.
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Linda Finstad |
Hi you guys are great, I wonder if you could help me with another question, What do you charge for a on location shoot. i kind of set my price at $69 for up to one hour shoot that includes 2 , 8x10 prints. do you think this is a reasonable price. Also do you guys take all your lights, posing table and backdrops to location shoots and set up a mini studio? I have done both natural setting and portable studion style shoots of animals but obviously one is way more work - what are your thoughts on that.
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W. |
"What do you charge for a on location shoot. i kind of set my price at $69 for up to one hour shoot that includes 2 , 8x10 prints. do you think this is a reasonable price." Sounds like excellent pricing, imho. "Also do you guys take all your lights, posing table and backdrops to location shoots and set up a mini studio? Yes, I take all my lights. But no posing table or backdrops. (I do portraits, groups, (corporate) situations, etc. etc. No animals). For mobility, I have a 'portable studio' that basically consists of 3 wireless 5600D flashguns on tripods, a 3' and a 4' silver/white reflector. Gives me plenty 'oomph' and endlessly variable possibilities, including faking a 'softbox' and balancing shadows. Easily fits a medium-sized suitcase. Next on my wishlist is a 20" MacBookPro immediately displaying every shot fullscreen. That'll need to be wireless too, somehow. And not just wireless, but superwide broadband wireless, to accomodate my 15MB exposures (and growing). That may be a while!
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Linda Finstad |
Hi thank you for responding, I too take 3 lights with me unfortunatly I dont have wireless ones so I have to contend with wires (very doddgy, especially with a large group) Next month I am booked to do portraits of an air cadet squadron - about 60 teens so I will have to be very careful to take all my wires. I am very interested to learn more about being able to view and show the shots on location, my competitor who I sometimes bump into at horse shows does this and sells way more images. She doesnt print them at the show but she does take pre paid orders and mails the finished print out later. where for my images they have to wait to view them on my web site as and when my web guy gets around to it. My only concern about displaying unedited uncroped images would be they are not as good as they would have been after some editing also how do you get around the RAW thing - I am asuming my competitor shoots in jpg to speed up the process. I guess my question is where would I find out more info on that kind of a set up and do you recomend any specific software ? thanx
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