Is there any money in dog photography?

Been doing more and more dog portraits and I really love shooting them and the results I can get. Wondering if its worth making it a business or continue doing it as a hobby.

Pet photography* =]

I've been doing landscapes for a long time. A few years ago I was speaking to another photographer and telling him how less & less people are willing to spend money on large landscape prints. His reply, "There are two things people will always spend money on no matter how poor the economy is: Their children and their pets."

Sadly I hate photographing children and pets.... but I certainly agree that people will always spend money on both. Here in HK people think dogs actually are children. I think my town actually has more pet/grooming stores and it has bars (or any other type of business).

There is a local studio owner who has two sides of her business boudoir and dog photography. She says on a good weekend (around holidays) of pet photography she makes as much as she does in a years worth of boudoir style sessions.

I think the key is to get in with some dog clubs or groups. Even better if the groups cater to either expensive dogs or owners with lots of disposable income. In other words not a dog club someone like me would be part of with my mutts. Granted I treat them just like my kids.

High-class pet photography is extremely lucrative these days. As has been said, people with pets instead of children will spend as much on their pets as parents do on children.

But you really need to do commercial-quality work, particularly knowing how to light fur to its best advantage.

Simple answer is yes. You do have to find clients willing to spend the money on them though. I have a few clients who willingly pay my rate, no questions asked. Then I have others who think, but it is only my dog. What they fail to realize is I do not have an animal translation app, so it sometimes takes awhile to get the trust of animal and get them to pose in a way that will create a decent photo.

There's a niche for it, I'm sure but not as many people would like to have their pets professionally photographed. I think the most lucrative photo business is in wedding photography.

I see lots of people spending crazy money on their pets. You would have to work to develop a good portfolio and maybe a relationship with some local groomers/boarders?

duckster wrote in post #18752483
I see lots of people spending crazy money on their pets. You would have to work to develop a good portfolio and maybe a relationship with some local groomers/boarders?

Pet photography is becoming the new child photography.

gabe212 wrote in post #18655825
Been doing more and more dog portraits and I really love shooting them and the results I can get. Wondering if its worth making it a business or continue doing it as a hobby.

One thing a local feed store does is a 4-hour pet photo session on Saturday, about four times a year with the largest around the holidays. The downside is the charge is very nominal, about $5 per shot 10 years back when I had dogs. Maybe today it is up to about $10. It is very popular but I suspect more beneficial to the feed store since they sell tons of pet related products during the time of the photo shoot.

Just looking at the schedule now, they do the pet photo session about mid-December. It is preceded by a Santa photo session (for kids, not pets) the first Saturday in December. The Santa session probably coincides with a busy weekend to pick up Christmas trees which this store also sells.