Dog Portrait Event Help

Helvegr

Hi - I'm posting this here because I figured it would be the best place to get some help, although I'm not a professional, nor do I really have a business.

I need help working through an idea. A local pet supply business often has events for people to bring in their dogs to get microchips in case they get lost. For awhile I've played around with the idea of seeing if I could maybe offer to shoot some quick portraits of the dogs, so that they have a recent photo in case they want to makes signs for their lost dog, etc. There would be no cost for this, I'm not trying to make a buck, just help out some people and their dogs.

But this is where I get hung up. Trying to connect these people back to their photos. I figured I'd like to maybe have them fill out a simple contact card, (which might be cool for a little marketing later if I ever wanted to try to do more professional pet portraits).

I'm just not sure the best way when I get back to Lightroom, that I can make sure I connect the correct shots with the correct person. I just want to pick the best shot out of probably a couple that I got from that particular animal, and email it to the owner.

Do I use maybe a numbered contact card of some type, and use that with the order of the shots on the card? That seems doable, but not a rock solid way.

Maybe change the file names in the camera before each dog? I've never really done that before, and not sure if that would be a slow, problematic way.

Maybe take a photo of the contact card before each dog? Then use that as a marker in Lightroom?

Anyway, tips from you pros? I'm sure there has to be some preferred ways of doing this. I imagine this same process would be similar if someone where to go shoot portraits of a sports team or something. Anytime you have a group of people you need to identify in the pictures.

Thanks!

Glort

When I have been doing events and had to identify groups or classes etc, I have a few small kids whiteboards I write on.
Take a pic of it or have it int he first pic with the kid or animal so you can see both them chuck it aside and carry on till the next one.

Cheap, easy, quick, low tech, relatively failsafe.

We also set up a new folder for each class or group on the camera memory card which also makes things easier and is quick to do.

I'd write the dogs name on the board like the Vets Do " Fido Smith", "Killer Jones" etc.

I would also do up a price list and samples to sell the pics.
Give them say a wallett size for ID purposes and then offer the others. I think people would be excited to be able to have their pet photographed there and would be keen for pics even though most of them probably wouldn't ever have a pet shooter come in or go to them to do it.
If it was there for them to take advantage of at no extra trouble or organizing, I think you could make a decent bit of cash.

People will definitely be asking to buy bigger pics though. IF they are having the dogs chipped they are going to be young animals and the excitement level from the owners will be high.

I understand the reason you are trying to do this but there is also no doubt people are going to ask you about buying more pics anyway. I have done one dog shoot/ event as a favour for a friend of a friend and it was far more profitable than what I would have ever imagined and I would be more than happy to do more of them.

If you go the full bit and take a Laptop or a computer with you and show and sell on the day, I reckon you'll be laughing. Take the Mrs or an assistant with you to do the sales and you do the shooting.
I would spin it a bit to the pet store's ( and your) advantage and drop the prints off there for collection. Gets them back into the store where they can buy more stuff while they are there. I would get payment up front as you don't want to be out of pocket if they don't Collect for whatever reason.

The one I did only had about a dozen dogs and we did well over $700.
I think I shot for about 2 hours on and off and hung around and socialized with the owners and got free BBQ and drink shoved into me for about another 90 min.
Positive recollections of that job that's for sure!

You could also take this I bit further. What about contacting Puppy schools run indoors or through the day on weekends and see if you can have a Photo day with them? You could also contact other pet stores and do the same thing.

Good Luck with it.

Helvegr

Thanks so much for the feedback. Sounds like I wasn't too far off looking at your whiteboard suggestion. Thanks makes even more sense then trying to take pictures of the contact sheets.

Its interesting to see that maybe there is a way to monetize this type of shooting, although for the most part that wasn't my original intention. I sure wouldn't say no to a little coin, the ink for my Epson 3880 isn't cheap, so wouldn't mind a little extra to help with that.

Thanks again for the feedback!

GerryDavid

Glort wrote: »

The one I did only had about a dozen dogs and we did well over $700.
I think I shot for about 2 hours on and off and hung around and socialized with the owners and got free BBQ and drink shoved into me for about another 90 min.
Positive recollections of that job that's for sure!

$700 for 12 dogs isnt bad. Do you mind if I ask what was in your packages and how much each package was? How many pictures did you take of each dog and how much time did you invest?

I almost did a photo day with a local dog salon last Christmas but it was a last minute thing and fell through. I really need to contact them again and get something going for the summer.

what type of place was it that you did this for?

Glort

Didn't Do packages, just sold prints and disks as per my usual event pricing.

Only offered 3 Print sizes, 8x12 and 2 5x7's or 2 6x8's on the same sheet ( different pics) for $35.
Also did Disks, 5 images straight off the camera for $50, 10 for $100. We did offer Mag covers as well and had a request for a special bordered print with text, I forget what that was for now. but we charged that the same as the mag covers at $40.

I didn't put a number of pics on each dog, didn't care really as long as I got a few saleable ones. Some we did with the owner and some of the dog(s) on their own. a few people had 2 dogs so we did individuals and together.
Basically I shot til I knew I had at least one killer shot.
Much to my surprise, we did manage to nail a killer shot of each animal. Makes it real easy to sell when a couple of people are standing there oohing and ahhing saying " You have to get that one, it's perfect".

Time wise I think I said I'd be there 2 hours and ended up staying about 3.5 or so. The last bit was socializing with the owners and eating and drinking till I was over full. I did all the shooting over about 2 hours as people arrived at different times so I had plenty of breaks in between and then shot as people that had arrived were ready.


The Place was basically a petshop which specialised in Chihuahua's and long haird rabbits.. The owner is a breeder and supplied a lot of the people that came with their dogs.
The place is in an industrial unit well on the edge of the city. The shop takes up half the unit and the other half is mainly storage and parking for the owners and they store a caravan and boat there but there is plenty of space.

I set up a full on studio in the empty area and the owners had set up tables & chairs and food for the guests and made it a birthday party for the store.
I set the lights up as a studio setup and had some lights on the black background that were gelled and a hair light that was plain and ran the leads back behind me so I could switch them in and out for the effect I wanted.

To sit the dogs ( and owners) on I had the store owner supply a nice chair she uses for her own snap shots. Being these animals were all lap dogs they were more comfortable on a chair than a table or anything else.
I did a lot of portraits of the animals and their owners, some with their kids and a family portrait of one lot of people.


I took a folding self/ stand thing I have and set up a computer with 2 monitors and a couple of printers in the shop part. As the camera and computer were only about 20 ft away, I just transferred the images Via the wi-fi card so I didn't have to mess with running cards back and forth. The people could see their pics on one monitor facing them and my son could see the other to find and process the pics etc.

We did onsite printing and disk burning which was also a hit.
A lot of people asked for all the images we took on disk.
I don't have a phobia about people seeing untouched and fiddled images, a lot of people were buying the disk to get the blooper shots because they thought they were funny and liked them even though they didn't want a print of it.
Far from ruining my reputation as a shooter, people were rapt to be able to get these images.

Other than bit of a crop here and there, we printed these images as shot. If the lighting etc is set up right in the beginning, there is no need for adjustments so the shots are fast to print.

The owner of the store emailed me on the weekend about doing this again for her next birthday in about 6 weeks and also to see if I would be interested in covering her Vets open day they are having.

I'm quite looking forward to doing both jobs based on the unexpected success of the last one.
This time round I'll offer green screen as well. That ought to help things along as it's definitely something the owners can't do themselves.

GerryDavid

Thanks for the reply glort! Care to share a few of the pics?

Ive been to a few pet stores/salons and they all tend to be small around here, not much space for a portable studio setup. But I love animals and would love to do something like this.