I’m super excited to finally announce that this April I’ll be teaching 5 days of awesome at the Animalhaus Masters Workshop right here in Seattle!  Animalhaus Media bridges the gap between content creators and brands in the pet industry. Learn To Shoot and Sell Stock & Commercial Pet Photography is a first-of-its-kind course for professional pet photographers who, you guessed it, want to shoot and sell stock.

My dear friend and incredible business coach/designer/entrepreneur, Nichole Smith, of Working With Dog, founded Animalhaus Media and this Masters Workshop Series with the idea that pet artists should get paid fairly for their work, and pet brands should be able to have affordable access to the best pet photography out there, royalty-free. “More than just a stock photography site, Animalhaus is a movement of like-minded rebels who believe that serving a purpose bigger than profit and earning a great living aren’t mutually exclusive.”  Amen to that. 

I think it’s safe to say that all professional pet photographers found their way into the business because they love photographing companion animals; many feel a deep connection with dogs, cats or horses, and many are self-proclaimed, proud introverts.  Because of this, there are plenty of pet photographers that do not include people in their photography, and when you’re shooting for private clients, this may never be an issue. However, once you start thinking about including stock photography in your portfolio (which as a professional you probably should), you begin to see that most companies are looking for lifestyle pet photography of animals and their humans. Yikes! This is where I come in.

In the course that I’ll be teaching April 11th-17th we’ll focus on how to create rapport with basic strangers, shooting in less than ideal/low-light situations and retouching, among other things. And I’m just your photography guide, Nicole Begley of Hair of The Dog and Nichole Smith (you can call her Nic) will be there to fill you in on all of the other (arguable even more important) aspects of shooting and selling commercial stock photography, like time management, keywording, pricing, how to find commercial clients, invoicing…OMG, there’s so much content I seriously can’t list it all here.  Click here to learn more about the workshop (EEEE!) and then come on back here and check out some of my favorite editorial pet images from the last few years… xx, Amy