Bringing Your Pet Business Photography to Life

Have you ever wondered the difference between a beautiful and a compelling image? For pet businesses, a compelling image draws your customer in, tells them a story, and creates an emotional connection to your brand.

Beautiful images fall flat in comparison. They can have perfect composition, lighting, and subjects, but they fail to compel a connection. If you want to convey that your business is about dogs, you could choose to use the first photo below, which is beautiful, catches your eye, and shows a dog - but does that photo tell your story?

The second photo is how a Veterinary Emergency Hospital that is on a mission to revolutionize emergency veterinary medicine and allows owners to stay with their pets throughout treatment, tells their unique story through photos.

Emotional connection is what makes a brand memorable, especially pet brands where the emotional connection to the audience’s pet is what drives them. The secret to what builds a compelling image is telling a story through the lens.

• Capture real life. When a real moment is captured in a photograph, it has a life. Think back to your childhood, your vacations, or the important moments of your life. Most people remember them through photos. When considering new imagery for your social media, website, or even print brochures, consider telling your real story through photos of real events, real moments of laughter, and real challenges. While it can be hard for an amateur photographer to grab these, real-life photos appeal to the voyeur in human nature and let your audience see and remember YOU.  

“This is Sandy & I; she was an absolute trooper that had neurosurgery. She stayed at our hospital for quite some time recovering (and recovered well and went home to her family. She would lay outside of her cage while we had other patients & was so well behaved. I miss her so much. I am grateful I can cherish this photo forever.”

• Set your stage, but stop posing. Photographs are powerful. They can be impactful. Visual storytelling is engaging, compelling, and memorable when you look at the full composition of what is occurring within your frame. Is there an action, an emotion, a situation happening, or an emotion being felt? Great storytelling photos convey your professionalism in their polish, but too many brands feel the polish needs to be conveyed through posed, sanitized photos. 

The photo above was taken from a recent trip to Cartagena, Colombia. I am passionate about telling the story of rescue organizations around the world and the tireless compassionate work they are doing to save dogs. This is Mi Amigo Refugio, a shelter built, operated, and financed by one woman who has made it her life’s mission to help animals. She is in desperate need of help so she can continue rescuing dogs.  

Just as I was about to leave the shelter I remembered that I had a small bag of dog treats in my bag. I gave it to the man in the middle of the photo and asked him to give the treats to the dogs. I was heartbroken that I didn’t bring more treats. Look at how those dogs gathered around calmly with the hope that they would get one small treat. Through the power of my camera lens, these stories can be told and shared to create awareness and galvanize support and raise funds for this rescue organization.

• Choose the emotions you’d like to convey and connect with. Many meanings and feelings can be derived from a singular image. I recommend giving minimal direction and do not intervene. When a subject feels comfortable in front of the camera, allow them to freely interact with each other and do not interfere. The goal is to make your subjects forget that the camera is even there, so strive to make yourself as invisible and unobtrusive as possible.

• Avoid using stock photography. A stock photo does not tell the story of your business. Using stock photos can make your business seem generic. Own your story and tell it through images of YOUR business. A photograph of your business can be used for many important purposes such as your website, social media content, promotional materials. Having a library of photos that tell the story of YOUR brand, YOUR team, YOUR customer is a powerful way to connect with YOUR target market. How do you want to be remembered?

Storytelling has the power to shape your customer’s connections to your business and transition their feelings about you from head-only to heart as well. It’s something I’m passionate about and would love to help you shape.

Contact me to find out how Dogs I Meet can tell your brand’s story through photography.