Nicole Begley is a Dog and Pet Photographer based in North Carolina. Today we talk about some of the challenges of photographing our four-legged friends and how to master your session. We also talk about the business side of pet photography and how to market to pet parents.
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
What Zoological training taught her about working with animals
The hardest part about photography to learn when just starting out
How to get pets to cooperate for a shot
The difference between an amateur and a professional pet photo
Tips for posing your pet
Premium Members Also Learn:
Why Nicole jumped into an unproven market of photography
The best form of marketing Nicole has found to book new clients
What photography products pet owners are buying from the sessions
How Nicole started booking sessions right away after moving to a new state
Resources:
North Carolina Pet Photographer Nicole Begley’s website
Nicole’s Pet Photography training website: Hair of the Dog
Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!
Full Episode Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:00 You have always worked with animals. You were a zoological trainer for 13 years, right? Is that right? Tell me when you knew that photography was going to play as important of a role in your life as animals have.
Nicole Begley: 00:13 Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, my first 13 years out of college, I was zoological animal trainer working with free flight birds and seals and primates and everything in between super fun. But I got into the point where I was you know, kind of middle management per se, that I was leading my team, loved my team, but it was, you know, you know, sometimes you have bosses that are a little bit more challenging to work for. And it had gotten to the point where I was no longer like, you know, loving every piece of my job that I used to. And I was like, I think it's time for something new. I've always had this entrepreneurial spirit. Always thought I'd worked for myself. And yeah, I had no idea it was going to be photography. So the love of animals definitely came first.
Nicole Begley: 00:56 And I had an appreciation of photography and always had, you know, art classes in high school and like ceramics and things like that. But I never I don't know, I wasn't one of those people that had a camera in my hand since I was five. I enjoy taking pictures of the animals that I worked with throughout all my zoological years and you know, just really loved and appreciated photography. And then when I was looking to do something on my own, I considered becoming a dog trainer, but then I realized I didn't have the patience to deal with the clients that I would assign homework for and then come back the next week and they didn't do the homework or mad at me. Their dogs don't have the same behavior. Like I don't have the patience for that. All right, can that, and scratch that what's next. And then I was like, well, I can be a photographer, but this was 2010 and I didn't think I could be a pet photographer. So I started off doing families and pets. And then about five years later I went all pets and stopped doing the families.
Raymond Hatfield: 01:55 Oh my gosh. That's that's, that's a, that's still a big jump, right. Obviously that progression. It totally makes sense. But going from strictly learning and working with animals to then working with a camera what would you say were maybe some of the biggest challenges early on that you had when it came to actually learning the technical side of photography?
Nicole Begley: 02:16 Oh gosh. Yeah. I, well, I just kind of dove into just absorbing everything that I could you know, and you look back at it and when you're first learning how to shoot with manual and you know, you're like, gosh, I'm never going to get this. This is so complicated. And then like one day, all of a sudden you're like, Oh my gosh, this is so easy. Why did I ever think this was hard? It just like clicks. So a lot of things like that, you know, they seem overwhelming when you start, but it was just a desire to, to continue learning. And I still have that desire to continue learning. I mean, I still go to workshops now to, to learn new things and super interested in compositing and things like that now. So I'm always looking for new ways to improve my craft and, and just, just learn and enjoy. So I think if you approach it from this place of just curiosity and that desire and willingness to learn and the knowing that it's okay, that you're going to fail that sometimes you're going to take like just a really bad shot and it's okay.
Raymond Hatfield: 03:17 That's true. That's most of my shots.
Raymond Hatfield: 03:21 Now you said early on that in 2010, you didn't think that you could just focus primarily on pet photography. So you did families. Is it families and pets are families specifically with their pets?
Nicole Begley: 03:34 No, it's families one side and pets. One side, I of course did have some families that would bring their pet, but it was definitely two different target markets, two different genres. Yeah, cause I really just, I was like, there's no way I think at the time, and there was maybe a handful of pet photographers. Now there's at least a handful in most markets, so we're growing, but there's yeah, there's still, still a fairly, fairly small John rhe of the whole big photography segment.
Raymond Hatfield: 04:04 Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. It's one of those things that you know, whenever I hear of a pet photographer, it's always so interesting because you know, most people growing up, they love, you know, they love animals or they love photography, you know, but very seldomly. Do you think that you can actually marry those two things together? Not in a commercial sense, I suppose, you know, doing like advertisements and stuff for pet food and stuff. But you have found now since 2010, that you have a good amount of clients that sustain you to be able to exclusively photograph animals. Is that right?
Nicole Begley: 04:39 Yeah, absolutely. And there's room for many of us and in all the markets. Because gosh, I'm gonna forget the numbers and totally butcher it, but it was something it's an obscene amount of billions that the pet industry spends on pets in the U S alone per year Galot. So there are so many pets and so many different households and they are all you know, ready to spend money on, on their pets. And there's your cat? There's my two legs running through behind me. Oh, he needed to get something for the dog.
Raymond Hatfield: 05:18 So when it comes to then I suppose, photographing animals right there in the beginning, you had this training when it came to working with animals, how much do you think that that's necessary going forward? And starting a photography business. As many people might want to photograph dogs, they might want to photograph other animals, but they probably don't have the same level of training that you had. Do you think that that's necessary to be able to photograph animals in the capacity that you do?
Nicole Begley: 05:49 No. They don't need to have like the amount of, you know, training of training, training, like opera conditioning, able to train animals and get elicit behaviors from them. They don't need to have that level of training or a background working with animals, but they do need to have a fundamental level of understanding of the natural history of these animals and their behavior and how their body language dictates the behavior of the animal. So you can look at a dog and just know if that dog is stressed. If that dog is excited, if that dog is nervous or anxious or wary of that other dog and, and learning to have a general knowledge of basic behavior of what you reinforce is going to continue and to, you know, what you ignore or don't reinforce might go away so that you just can have some, some general tools to start to work with these dogs.
Nicole Begley: 06:45 For instance, if you show up at a shoot and you know, the dog loves his parents, they are, the dog knows his people, but the dogs may be nervous around new people or maybe the dogs nervous of the camera. I mean, that's a pretty big, scary thing that we're like, Hey, we have this giant thing staring at you. It looks like a giant eyeball. So maybe they're nervous about that. So we need to know to have enough knowledge that we can say, Hey doc, it's okay, I'm your friend, here's this camera. It's not going to be scary. So it's, I started my sessions really, as I pull up my camera, well, first let me back up before I even pulled out the camera, you need to start engaging that dog and kind of seeing where that dog's at and the comfort level of that dog.
Nicole Begley: 07:27 So before we even have our session, I'm talking to the client asking them about their dog, is their dog comfortable around other dogs around other people? Are they nervous in busy situations? Where are we going to be shooting? What's that situation like, you know, just to have a idea of what might await me there. And then I get there and I go over and I say hello to the owners. And I pretty much ignore the dog for a second just to be, you know, talking to the owner and I'm keeping an eye on how the dogs behaving, because some dogs you can like walk up to them and be like, Oh my God. And like, you know, be all excited. And the dogs like, yeah. And I was like, yes, you know, like a golden retriever, lab's going to be like, Oh my God, hi.
Nicole Begley: 08:08 I love you. I love you so much. But you know, you do that to a more nervous dog or a dog that maybe has a background. They just adopted from a shelter. That's been a little bit nervous or you don't know what their background is. You might just totally blow their mind and be hard to get them back for the session. So I greet the owner, I keep an eye on the dog. I'll kind of get down on the level. Might let the doc come over and sniff me, you know, and then I can maybe start petting the dog. I'm not going to reach straight for their head because if somebody knew, didn't know, reach straight your, for your face, you might be a little bit nervous of that 100%. Yeah. There was no money. I would not appreciate that.
Nicole Begley: 08:44 Actually the age of a COVID you're like just back. No, but yeah, so we want to just take a slowly and then I'll pull my camera out and I'll just see if the dog has reaction to that. And I might just press the shutter button to see if the dog has a reaction to that. And if we're still all good, I might hold it up a little, you know, and you just kind of see, like if I held the camera up and started to put it in my face, and all of a sudden I noticed the dog's ear started to go back and they're like shoulders kind of sun hunched down a little bit and that's telling me, Oh, wait, I'm getting a little nervous here. So I have the camera out. I have some treats. It's like, Hey, camera, treat, camera, treat, click, treat, click treat.
Nicole Begley: 09:22 Or like, Oh wait. This thing is really, really good and really delicious. And you know, and then they quickly start to become more comfortable. So having that level of just being aware of what their body language is telling us, and some quick and easy ways to help an animal overcome something that's a little bit nervous are two really important pieces to the pet photography puzzle. And one last thing is that you really need to enjoy photographing dogs to do this well. I don't want anyone out there that like really doesn't like dogs to think, Oh, this is going to be a great, a great January. I should just jump in here because it's going to be easy money. Now, if you don't love the animals, it's going to show in their owners, hold love the animals. And it's just not going to fit as well. Like for instance, if I, you know, really dislike newborn photography, I probably shouldn't be a newborn photographer. You know, like you need to photograph the things that you love. So definitely make sure you, you have the, the love and patience for dogs, because it does require quite a bit of patients because you're setting up the same shot numerous times on occasion. And, you know, I can literally have patients that goes on for days for dogs. Some humans, not so much, but dogs all day long.
Raymond Hatfield: 10:38 That's hilarious. So when I'm interested more in, I guess, in that interaction, because I'm thinking of this in the sense of working with people and for me shooting weddings, whenever I show up to an engagement session, it's easy for me to communicate to somebody, right. I can simply tell them, and then they understand, and then that's what we do as far as animals go. There has to be times in which you show up and maybe an animal is really nervous and just doesn't doesn't catch on is, is probably more difficult. How often would you say that that happens?
Nicole Begley: 11:12 Not too often. I would say the most challenging dogs to photograph tend to be the dogs or that are really old and maybe no longer can see or hear very well. So those two senses are really what we use to get that expression and that engagement from the dog, especially noises, you know, I often kind of set the dog up in the area that I want them to be with the owner with, or without the owner, I guess. And I have them over there. I get my settings ready. You know, I shoot with a long lens at times, so I'm far away, but that I'll just, you know, get everything ready. And then just to listen to the expression with the, like, you start making like little dog whining noises, I have all sorts of hunting calls that I can you know, make all sorts of crazy noises with my personal favorite is the distressed cottontail rabbit call.
Nicole Begley: 12:02 I don't even know what Hunter uses this or like what, they're, what they're trying to call in with that. But yeah, the dogs are like their ears go off their head, tilts a little bit. Their mouth closes. They're like, what, what, what does that, I've never heard that before. So we have all of these little tricks. You start to speak their language a little bit in order to, to just get them to get that expression. And that's what I think owners are so nervous before the session. Cause we have two giant objections is pet photographers that we need to address before a client comes in front of our lens. Number one is they think that their dog is not well enough behaved and they don't have a sit in a stay and there's no way we can create these images to their dog.
Nicole Begley: 12:46 Like all the time, 90% of the pet parents out there would see beautiful pet photography. And they immediately say, God, that's beautiful. My dog would never do that. So that's a huge objection. We need to educate people and say, no, all dogs can do it. We have the ways to make this happen. The other giant objection people have before they choose to you know, move forward with pet photography is that my dog can't be off leash. They see all these incredible images in the city and these beautiful vistas and the dogs off leash, but most of those dogs were not off-leash. They were photographed on a leash and we remove it in post. So those two pieces are just so important to, to let potential clients know to help them come to the conclusion that they too can do this.
Raymond Hatfield: 13:33 Wow. Yeah, those are, that's something that I never would have assumed, I guess, you know, I look at a photo of a dog who's not who doesn't have Alicia. And I would just naturally assume that that dog just didn't have a leash and they were getting photographed. That's really interesting. So that must, you know, created a lot of extra time for you when it comes to post-work would you say that's right?
Nicole Begley: 13:53 Yeah, a little bit. It depends. It is definitely built in and you learn really quickly what you need to avoid. So the first time that you take a picture and you have them holding the leash where it's kind of down on the dog's shoulder, and maybe it's like, as you're looking at the image it's dog, shoulder leash, and then the outer you know, like the background that you don't have a clean edge of the dog shoulder, I promise you'll never do it again. Or, you know, also like if you have the leash on the ground and it's like between the dog's legs are down around toes and you have to rebuild toes again, you'll never do that again. You'll get really, really crazy about making sure that leash goes straight up off the back of the dog and you tell the owner and show them exactly how to hold it.
Nicole Begley: 14:40 Or you have an assistant that holds it. You'll also keep be mindful of where that leash, if it's coming off the side, if it's a dog with big floppy ears and it's like, it's, you're looking at the image face space ear. And then that leash is coming up from the neck, like underneath the ear, around the bottom of the ear, like you get really, really good at it should come off the dog, not touch any outer edge of the dog and go straight on the background. And then that is actually not too bad. We get really, really good. We have quite a few different tricks, like say you're taking a picture of a dog especially on something like a building or something that has more detail. And it's not just like pretty you know, soft background of trees then, you know, the dog standing there and the owner's holding it oftentimes I'll get the shots that I need and then I'll have both the dog and the owner stuff out of the way. And I'll just take a background image and then it's really easy just to merge those in post and just paint away the leash and everything else or paint the dog back in. So there's a lot of, a lot of little tricks like that, that save us a lot of time.
Raymond Hatfield: 15:46 Yeah. It sounds like it that's awesome that, that you kind of have a, have a system worked out for something like that, because my first reaction would be just take the dog off the leash and then sort of things would just go, just go nuts. So I'm glad that there's professionals in the world, like you were doing this and and not me. And when it comes to photographing those animals though being a pet photographer, I'm always interested in learning the why. Right. So because, you know I shoot weddings and somebody else shoot weddings. We can have two completely different reasons as to why we photograph weddings and what it is that we try to capture at each wedding. Right? So as a pet photographer in your own, in your own words, what do you, what would you say is the job description of, of a, of a doctor photographer? What are you trying to capture?
Nicole Begley: 16:34 We capture the relationship of, you know, a human and, and a canine or equine, or, you know, our animal partner, really the, the clients that come before my lens, they, they see these animals as a member of their family. A lot of my dead dog clients don't have children of the two legged variety, or if they do they're empty nesters, their kids are off to college or they're young professionals often. So their dog is their world. And they know that, you know, they're with us for such a short time dog years, you know, unfortunately are not that long in the grand scheme of things. So they just want to capture that relationship and, and capture the character of their, their four legged companion in a, in a way that, you know, cause I would say one of the things that people say most whenever they see their images that I've taken as they, that I've captured the dog, as they know them, like I captured the different expressions that they are so used to seeing that they often, for whatever reason don't get from just pulling out their phone, you know, they, they are able to start to, well, I'm able capture for them.
Nicole Begley: 17:49 That's just range of, of different expressions that their, their dogs often create because of all these different tricks we have up our sleeves of getting those different expressions with the different, you know, a cottontail rabbit, distress calls, dog whining noises, and action shots and all these, all these different different things.
Raymond Hatfield: 18:11 So obviously people take a lot of pictures of, of our animals, right. It, they're cute. They're they're furry. Sometimes they make funny faces. It's, it's easy for us to want to take photos of of our animals. So I'm sure that you see them when you scroll on Facebook, Instagram, and there's always something right that, that you can tell right away like, Oh, this photo was taken on a cell phone or this photo is not that good, just so that people listening know what to avoid. What would you say is just a clear sign of an amateur pet photo?
Nicole Begley: 18:42 Oh, I mean, I think it comes down to what everything in photography comes down to and that slight you know, especially with a black dog or a black and white dog, just making sure that you're in the proper light to get a good exposure. I would say just as important as the light is also just that expression where the dog is actually looking into the lens and not like, you know, if the lens is over here, the dog's not looking like three feet above it over here, or, you know, you're actually getting this connection with your subject, which again, yeah. Light and connection with your subject, I think is the key of any portrait. No matter what the, what the subject,
Raymond Hatfield: 19:23 I love that that makes it a nice and easy for somebody to, you know, try to try to get better photos of themselves. Just look for better light and then wait, wait for the right moment. Does that sound right?
Nicole Begley: 19:33 Yeah. Yeah. Or create the right moment, look for the light and then get your animal. Like I always set everybody up and then I create the moment with, I make sure I'm ready to go. I have my test shot, but settings are dialed in. I know how I'm going to compose the shot. And then you just let loose one of those crazy noises or throw something up in the air or have somebody run behind you. And the dog's like, woo. And you got it.
Raymond Hatfield: 19:55 I love that. I love those expressions dog expressions. They're so much fun cats, not so much dogs. Dogs are a lot. Yeah.
Nicole Begley: 20:02 They're a little bit more challenging those cats. I always like to tell people I don't do a ton of cat photography. There's just not, if you'd love CAFA tography you could definitely create something, you know, create a business around that. But I have just found in my experience there aren't nearly as many cat owners that want to invest in like a cat photography session as there are as dog owners. But when I do do them on rare occasion, I always let the the owner know that this is going to be kind of like essentially a newborn session on like this could take half an hour or it could take three hours. We are 100% on the cat's time.
Raymond Hatfield: 20:38 I believe it. Knowing, having known a few cats in my life. They're not, they're not very cooperative.
Nicole Begley: 20:43 No, they, well, they are, if they're in, you know, it depends. They, they they just ruled the roost. They know that they have all the power and control.
Raymond Hatfield: 20:52 That's an easy way of putting it. Yeah. That's a nice way of putting it when it comes to photographing these pets. Are you often taking photos of, of, is it mostly just the pet? Is the, is the session mostly just the pet or is it the pet and the parents? How does that, how does a typical session work for you? What are you trying to capture?
Nicole Begley: 21:11 Usually pets and parents depends. I have a consultation with everybody before I'm usually via the phone and just to find out what they're looking for, because sometimes I have people that hire me that really just want a big, beautiful portrait of their dog on the wall. Great. We'll focus on that or somebody that maybe they're coming and they want to do an album. So we want to create more of that story. So having an idea of generally what they want to create from their session definitely helps us plan and know what we're going to photograph more of for the most part though. Most sessions include their, you know, their pet parents any of the humans that live in their house and and the dog and we'll focus some of it. I usually do the ones with the pet parents when they first get there, because you know, mom's hair is done.
Nicole Begley: 21:59 Makeup's done. Like they don't have to worry about, you know, after running around with a dog and getting hot and sweaty, cause it's summertime, like we get all those pictures out of the way first and then we'll focus on the dog afterwards. But yeah, just about every session we have some part of it. The focus is on the relationship between the two and then also just the dog and for those owners. Cause there are the owners that are like, Oh, I don't want to be in the photos. I usually encourage them to I'm like, you don't have to do anything with these. Let's at least create a few of them. And I also say, I would love to create a few where you're in the image, but you're not the main focus of the image. So it doesn't all have to be a traditional, everybody sitting and smiling at the camera, it can be the dog sitting next to the owner and you just have the owner's feet and the dog looking up at the camera, it could be you know, if it's a small dog, the dog on the owner's shoulder and you're shooting the back of the owner's head with the dog, looking towards you kind of like you would with a toddler.
Nicole Begley: 22:54 You know, so there's, there's different shots that you can do that include the parents without it being like a traditional shot of you know, them and the dog looking at the camera, which is what I think a lot of owners think when you say, Hey, do you want to be a photographs with the dog? They're gonna be like, well, I don't want to put a picture of me and my dog smiling at the camera on the wall. Cause yeah, they don't always understand that it can be a little bit more, they can be a little bit more discreet about themselves and the pictures are a big, a big grinning photograph.
Raymond Hatfield: 23:26 Yeah. But man, that's what I would want. I would want the photo of all of our faces, all like snuck together, just all close and big, a big group hug with the, a with the pup in there. That's what I want. That's exactly what would go the wall. I want to go back to kind of the beginning right now and focus a little bit more on that transition that you may going from working strictly with animals to jumping into photography and then working with animals. Right. So, so as you said, 2010 pet photography, wasn't exactly a proven thing yet. I guess there wasn't really many. So what was it about what was it about the idea of photographing pets that made you just jump in head first, rather than picking something maybe easier, quote, unquote,
Nicole Begley: 24:13 You are listening to the free version of the beginner photography podcast where each week you learn how world-class photographers see and capture the world around them. If you want to hear the extended interview with their best business tips to learn how to make money with your camera, then become a premium member today by heading over to beginner photography, podcast.com and click the premium membership button to join now.
Raymond Hatfield: 24:36 Oh my gosh. That is, that makes perfect sense. And I don't think that that's something that I think many photographers are going to think about, but again, as I said earlier, if somebody takes just that piece of information right there, cut that part out of this podcast and just uses that piece of information. I don't see how they couldn't grow their business with that. So thank you so much for, for sharing that little piece of information right there, right on that timestamp. That was great. Let's, let's get back to photography for a few minutes here. The last few minutes that I that I still got ya when it comes to, you know, people, when it comes to an engagement session, you know what I do with every couple, I have to pose them because I want them to look good in their photos. I want them to look a certain way. When it comes to pets I've had dogs, I've had cats. I can't get them to do anything that I want them to let alone. I can't imagine the, the struggles that you go through in terms of posing or, or not is posing something that you even have to worry about. Is this something that you do? How does this work as a pet photographer?
Nicole Begley: 25:38 Yes. So it won't be long if you're a pet photographer that you will then post in one of the pet photography, Facebook groups, Hey guys, how much do you edit out? Male dogs, lipstick because of how they're sitting. So posing does matter. But that still happens sometimes. And you know, you can't necessarily tell the dog, okay. You're sitting in straight on now, just shift your hips to the left a little bit and use that front pod to cover up your little document parts there. So yes and no, you have to, sometimes I photograph for expression. So if that dog has this amazing engaging expression, we're going to make the posing work, even if her evolves, editing out anatomical parts. But you know, you do try to set it up in a way that, you know, you do have a little bit of posing but it's still really, really organic.
Nicole Begley: 26:38 So when, for instance, if I'm doing just the dog, I know this is the background that I want. I know, you know, what focal length I want to shoot out. I know how much of the scene I'm going to want in the viewfinder. I know how big the dog is going to be in that area. Like it's all there. And I have the owner keep the dog right about there. And I usually don't care if the dog sitting or standing. And so I tell the owner, like the dog should just be here and if they're starting sitting and I say, if he stands up, it's fucking fine. Because if you don't let the owner know that, then all of a sudden the dog stands up and you're still getting great expression. But the owner's like, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit, you know, freaking out and stress the dogs like, dude, what's going on? Why are you yelling at me? She's making all these cool noises over here and you know, and she has treats. So yeah, so there is posing, but it's very flexible and I tend to look for the expression more so than, than the pose.
Raymond Hatfield: 27:38 So typically can you walk me through maybe what you're looking for? Is it, is it just sit, stand, like in between those is there, is there, is there more that you can, that you can get from that?
Nicole Begley: 27:51 Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it's nice to have dogs like up on something and like a bigger dog. Maybe it's just a bench, like a smaller dog. You can put up a little bit higher. Of course it's always important to make sure the owner's right there and the dog safe. You know, if it's a small dog and a high thing, you don't want them jumping off and getting hurt. Always keep your lead shot or somebody right there. So keep that safety in mind. But when you're able to put a dog up on something and then you can shoot from below a little bit, and then that dog seems like larger than life. So maybe the dog standing in their heads kind of coming down towards the camera and you have this like great big cartoon, almost Ted of this dog. And it's just an angle of view that most owners never see, but they feel like they're like, Oh my God, that is my dog.
Nicole Begley: 28:32 Like if my dad was a superhero, that would definitely be my dog. So you know, there's different ways to do like that. They can be laying down sometimes the lay on a ledge or if the lay down on the grass. If it's a dog that really loves his belly scratch, it's great to have them, you know, get their belly scratched and they're rolling over and you can shoot straight down on them. One word of caution though, if you're going to shoot down on a dog. So if you're standing over the dog, shoot it down with the wide angle lens, you really, really, really need to watch that body language and that comfort level of that dog, because anytime someone comes over them like that, that's pretty scary. And a vulnerable spot for the dog, especially with this big giant, like wide angle lens.
Nicole Begley: 29:16 It looks like a giant eye. They can get pretty nervous about that. So not all dogs can handle that, even at the end of the session, like a wide angle lens shot right over their head looking down, it's a super cute shot, but some dogs get really, really nervous. Some require a lot of treats and just, you know, you get it quick and you're done and you reinforce them and you're like, okay, what's the good, that was good. And then a lot of them, like, that's, that's not a shot. You'd want to start your session off with, cause the talk would be like, Holy cow, where are we? What's going on? This is terrifying. So yeah, hopefully that helps.
Raymond Hatfield: 29:50 It does. Yeah. I mean, when it comes to posing animals, I guess I just, I'm just so clueless, but all those things that you mentioned totally makes sense. You know, and, and in the same way, it's kind of like people, you know, I, I, I, I have a couple of sit down, I have couple stand, I have couples lay down on the grass or something like that. But as you said, it's a lot about the expression and in whatever you need to do to get that and focus on who they are and get that personality. That's what you gotta do. So yeah.
Nicole Begley: 30:19 Yeah. Just like, yeah. Wedding photographer is a, you know, the bride and groom, they could be perfectly posed, but if they're like rigid and don't have any good expression on their face, it's not going to be a sellable image that you're going to want to have.
Raymond Hatfield: 30:29 Oh yeah. There's nothing worse than the, just like no smile in the eyes. White teeth. Oh, it's the worst.
Nicole Begley: 30:36 My fourth grader smile. He had that one, he was like, first grade, just be a smile and be like, yeah,
Raymond Hatfield: 30:42 This is just teeth. Right. That's how these smiles. Right. What do you think is a, when it comes to pet photography, what do you think is a misconception that many people just get wrong when they think about what it's like to be a dog photographer?
Nicole Begley: 30:56 Oh gosh. I think they think that we just play with dogs all day. But you know, as with any other photography business to such a small piece of our photography business is actually the photography that it's just as much editing and administrative work and marketing and things like that. That, yeah, it's not all just puppy, puppy breath and, and dog treats and, and you better be prepared to get your camera gear clean more often. Because pretty much every time I have someone clean my gear, they're like, yeah, this is disgusting on care on your sensor. Yeah. Yeah. Peanut butter on the outside of my camera, you know,
Raymond Hatfield: 31:46 Did you just carry like a jar Jif to each session? Is that how that works?
Nicole Begley: 31:50 Sometimes I don't use it a ton, but I do, they have those little like individual packs, you know, that are like an ounce. If you guys do use peanut butter though, make sure that it's not like the sugar-free peanut butter with the xylitol. Cause xylitol is so very super toxic to dogs, like in a sudden a lot of gum. But there are a couple brands of peanut butter that have it too. So be very careful with that.
Raymond Hatfield: 32:12 That's a pro tip that I never, I never would've thought I never would have even given that a second tip. And I'm glad because now somebody is not going to take sugar-free peanut butter to a session and kill their clients
Nicole Begley: 32:24 That be very bad and really truly know before you ever give any client dog, any food. I always ask the owners, you know, cause some of these dogs have allergies or special diets. You know, so I always ask them if they have any diet restrictions, I asked them before the session, how picky they are, if the dog has diet restrictions or is really picky, I have the owners bring the treats and I just tell them to cut them up really, really small, like the smaller, the treats, the better gosh, especially for little dogs, but even big dogs, you to be working with these dogs for an hour and an hour and a half. You know, you're not giving them treats the whole time, but if you're giving them like this giant treat all the time, they're going to be full and satiated and not have any sort of interest in the food. So like, I mean, truly it's like little nuggets, like hardly anything at crumb and they're like, okay, I'll keep working
Raymond Hatfield: 33:13 Because I can't do it. And want to feed a kid candy for an hour now.
Nicole Begley: 33:16 Exactly. They don't get the giant cookie. You're going to break that cookie up to get as much motivation as you can out of that cookie
Raymond Hatfield: 33:24 And motivational cookie. I got, I got one last cookies. Oh man, you got that right. I got that. I got one last thing that I want to talk about here before I let you go. And that really is what you touched upon before is just being safe with animals animals, as you know, as I assume, can be very dangerous, can be not wild. What's the word I'm looking for on you don't know what they're going to do right. At a moment's notice. Right, right. So unpredictable, that was the one what sort of special precautions do you need to take aside from body language? And, and then lastly, what about like insurance? Do you have to have some sort of special insurance to, to photograph dogs as well?
Nicole Begley: 34:12 Yeah. For the insurance, definitely talk to your insurance person. We should all have liability insurance. You know, no matter what you're photographing or where you are photographing at different locations usually require that. So definitely talk to your insurance agent about that protection. But then as far as safety, yeah. I mean just really being in tune with that body language and what the dogs are telling you is so, so key. You know, and also not being afraid to just take control of the session. Cause a lot of times I've seen where we're out somewhere and if the dog can be off leash and it's safe to do so, like we're not in the city, we're at a park and there's no other dogs, no other people, you know, there's not a busy road nearby. Okay. Maybe we'll do part of the session off leash.
Nicole Begley: 34:57 But if I notice the dog is not listening to the owner and it's like sniffing and like, you know, into all the other stuff around more so than us, then I'm going to be the one that say, all right, let's put the dog back on leash. Like you don't have to wait for the owner to say, cause the owner's going to push it. Cause the owner feels like they want their dog off leash because those pictures turn out better where quite honestly having the dog on leash often turns out better because you get to keep the dog in one spot. So just, you know, not being afraid to take control about that and the same thing. If you're photographing kids and dogs, that's a situation that you just need to be really careful with because you know, any family photographer knows show up to the session, mom stressed, dad's stressed, you are stressed.
Nicole Begley: 35:41 Kids are stressed doc stress now because they're like, why the hell is everybody else so stressed? Oh my God, we're gonna die. So you have all of this stress there and animals are very sensitive to that. And you know, and you don't want the kids to get in the dog space and maybe the dog's totally fine at home, but this is a situation you're at a different location. Everyone else is stressed. Like it's just, it's a whole different location. So you just want to be really, really careful and look at every situation as how can this go badly. Okay. Let's stop it. So you just really want to, to be extra careful more so than you would be just if the dog was at home.
Raymond Hatfield: 36:19 Yeah. And I think, again, it kind of comes down to you know, with people it's pretty easy to communicate. You can just use your words and with animals just getting to really know who they are and, and how it is that they behave. So Nicole is, is there anything that maybe I didn't ask you today that you just want to make sure that the listeners know about photographing dogs?
Nicole Begley: 36:43 Oh gosh, no. I mean, if you really want to, like, if, if you're really feel drawn to this, just, just learn practice. There are so many great resources to learn more about dogs. For instance, a lot of people think, Oh my gosh, I can't be a dog photographer. I don't have a dog. I didn't get my dog until four years ago. So I had the first six years of my business without a dog of my own which is unheard of in the pet photography world, but it can be done. So just to go and learn, learn you know, learn about body language, learn about dog behavior. There's a great book. If you want to learn a little bit about training, it's called don't shoot the dog by Karen Pryor, super easy read bonus points. It's going to help you with your spouse and your kids and anyone else you deal with.
Nicole Begley: 37:28 So everyone should go read that one. But yeah, there's just, just continued learning and don't be afraid to you know, to ask for feedback or ask, ask the owner, you know, is if the dog's okay, don't be afraid to let the dog take a break. I know when I first started photography, I felt like if I wasn't shooting every second of the session, then the client was going to realize that I didn't really know what I was doing. So I better look like I'm busy all the time, but that was just my ego trying to protect me. Cause I was like, I don't really know. I know what I'm doing. So yeah, so don't be afraid during a session to take it slow. And if the dog seems a little stressed, just let him take a break, take a walk, you know, like just, just chill out for a minute. And you know, it's, it's totally fine.
Raymond Hatfield: 38:20 I love that. Oh, Nicole, again, thank you so much for coming on, sharing everything that you did. I got one last question for ya. And that is if those listening want to know more about dog photography first of all, maybe do you have like a podcast reference that people could listen to and second of all, where else could listeners find you online?
Nicole Begley: 38:41 Sure, absolutely. So I run the hair of the dog podcast. It is a podcast for pet photographers. So we talk all about the craft and business of pet photography over there. So definitely check us out. And you can find that at hairofthedogacademy.com, which is also a website that has a ton of content we have a whole bunch of free content as well to help you improve your craft and grow your business.