The Secrets Behind Amazing Pet Photos – Expert Insights from Kirsten Hough

How to Capture Stunning Pet Photos – Tips from Pro Photographer Kirsten Hough

🐶📸 Have you ever wanted to take jaw-dropping photos of pets but struggled to get them to sit still or look at the camera? Or maybe you’re dreaming of turning your passion for pet photography into a thriving business?

In this episode, I sit down with Kirsten Hough, an incredible pet photographer, to dive into the world of capturing pets at their best. Kirsten shares her expert techniques for taking stunning pet portraits, from getting the perfect expression to working with different animal personalities. Plus, she spills her best business secrets for building a successful pet photography brand!

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✨ How to take amazing pet photos, even if they won’t sit still
 ✨ The biggest mistakes new pet photographers make (and how to avoid them)
 ✨ How to connect with pets to capture their unique personalities
 ✨ Tips for launching and growing a successful pet photography business
 ✨ Tips on entering photography awards
 ✨ Kirsten’s top tips for standing out in the competitive photography world

Whether you’re a hobbyist looking to improve your pet photography or a photographer thinking about turning pro, this episode is packed with golden nuggets you won’t want to miss!

Connect with Kirsten Hough:

📸 https://wortandflea.co.nz/
 📸 @wortandflea
 📸 facebook.com/wortandflea

Resources Mentioned:

📷 https://scene.sonyanz.com/events

🎧 Listen now and learn how to capture pets like a pro!

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with fellow pet lovers and photographers!

Transcript

0:00  
Welcome to the female photographer podcast. I'm your host. Maria Eves and I started this podcast to help uplift and inspire female photographers just like you with a weekly chat to share insights about photography from other women who just get you. Our guest today is an award winning pet photographer right here in New Zealand. She has judged for the iris awards, and she is a digital imaging ambassador for Sony scene events. I'm so excited to introduce Kirsten Huff so you can hear all her secrets about how she captures her amazing images and how she runs a successful pet photography business. So how did you actually start up in photography?

0:50  
Well, I've always had a camera in my hand since I was a child, and I started out by basically photographing my own animals, and I've just kind of dabbled for decades, and I always wanted to get into pet photography, but I wanted to do it before it was a thing. And then a couple of major life events in 2016 and 2019 gave me a bit of a jolt, and that was when I decided that I really needed to pursue it professionally. So I quit my job 2019 and started working on the business straight away, and start pursuing a full time professional career in pet photography just before COVID hit and the first lockdown murthy's law. But here I am, five years later. So I am very fortunate to run my business from home. I have access to 100 acres of farmland, so people come to me with their dogs. We go for up to a two hour walk around the farm. Everyone has a bit of an adventure, and we stop and take some photos along the way and capture some memories for people. So it's been a long time in the making. It took me about 25 years to get there, but better late than never. So kind of advice I'd give to anyone is, if you want to do it, just get out there and do it. Imperfect Action is better than no action. And also, I would say it doesn't matter how old you are, if you have delayed it, it's still never too late to start and get out there and put yourself out there and start doing

2:20  
it. So they say, you know, everyone says, don't work with animals or children. Yes, what are some tips you might have to get the best out of a dog or an animal, and you know, to be able to get a good photo of it. And

2:37  
certainly with dogs, the best thing you can do is have a conversation with the owner first and find out what the dog's personality is like, what they're motivated by. Are there any behavioral issues? What training do they know? The more that you can arm yourself and educate yourself on the dog that you're going to be meeting and working with, the better prepared you'll be for your session. Also look into the breed traits as well, because different breed traits have different personalities. So for example, Border Collies are really easy to train. You can get farm dogs are very high energy. It might need a little walk before they come to your session. And then you can have your flip side, where you've got your 15 year old senior dogs coming down that might not have much energy at all. So really educate yourself on your clients dog and what their personality and ability is like. That's probably one of the biggest tips. First to start with. So and that leads in if you know what your dog is motivated by, because every dog is motivated by something different. Some are by toys. Some are by food. Some are motivated by their owner. So that can all help you to capture a shot, getting down low, getting on the dog's level. Get down and keep duty. I say I'm always often covered in mud and grass, but you need to get down to your dog's level, and that really helps connect, that they'll make the eye connection and capture the personality you don't really want to be standing up photographing down on the dog. So get down to that level and see what the world like looks like from their perspective.

4:15  
And treats always good to have on hand,

4:20  
and probably one other thing that I do a little bit is when dogs first arrive, is I will always ignore them, so I never rush up to a new dog when I'm meeting them. I let them come to me in their time when they're ready. Some dogs will come up straight away, and others, if they're a little bit more shy or anxious or timid, I allow them the time and space that they need to approach me, and it makes a better connection for you and the client's dog if you don't just go and rush them, which is what your natural instinct is to do in the first place, because you want to say hello and have a cuddle, but let the dog come to you in their time.

4:58  
Your photos often have this kind of beauty. Will glow, or, you know, like a beautiful sky. And then do have a particular time of day that you like to take the photos there?

5:06  
Yep. So I am not a morning person, so I will always photograph two hours prior to sunset. You get the golden hour. You get the best, most even lighting and the nicest, softer light and colors in the sky. So I still, because I'm down the back on the farm, and we've got a lot of trees, I still do like to photograph with a little bit of sunlight. So a bit of a sunny, cloudy day is one of my preferences. Obviously, if it's fully overcast, you've got nice diffused light, and so you can shoot in that as well. But I just like a little hint of sun to be popping through at some stage. Yeah, yeah,

5:44  
beautiful. And everyone's gonna ask this question, what kind of camera do you use and what lenses do you prefer? So

5:54  
my workhorse for the last kind of six or seven years has been the a seven r3 Sony, which about 42 megapixels. I've recently upgraded to the a seven, five, so I'm still getting the hang of that and added another 20 megapixels or so in there. Go to lenses. Originally, when I started out, it was 70 to 216 to 35 in my 50 I then found that my back would hurt, my arm would hurt from lugging the lenses around, because I do a good two to three hours with the sessions. So I switched to the Sony 135 GM. That was an absolute game changer for me. I was able to let go of all the other lenses, and I just used the 135 for my action, my portraits, my close ups, it meant I had to physically move around more. But just a game changer, I could go home and not have a sore back and the sore arm and all the rest of it. And saying that, just recently, Sony released the newer 70 to 202.8 GM, two and that is 29% lighter than the original version, wow. And it's also slightly lighter than the 135 GM as well. Now, so I now carry around the 70 to 200 and the 135 so 135 I'll use for portraits. The 70 to 200 I'll use for action, and then I take the 50 as well if I want to do close up head shots. So I'm I'm back to lugging around a bag of gear, but those are my three favorite lenses at the moment.

7:37  
And talk us through one of your shoots, because you've got, you provide, like, a really unique experience, right with the farm and stuff. How does the kind of whole experience work, and how does the shoot progress? So

7:51  
basically, first of all, when the client arrives, we kind of come up to the studio so they can have a look at all of the products, ask any last minute questions that they've got. This just allows your dog a little bit of time to adjust to the new environment and surroundings as well. Then we turn around, we head back down and start our up to two hour walk around the farm. It's about a good 15 to 20 minutes walk to the first photographic location. And so again, that allows the dogs just to kind of get any excitement, because there's obviously smells and sounds and sights that they're not used to. So it allows them just to settle into their environment a bit, so that by the time we get to the first location, I'm usually able to get them to kind of stop and stand still for a few moments to be able to take their picture. We then I have a few other different areas and around that location that we move to that aren't more than, like, one or two minutes walk. That just helps give us a bit more variety, and it breaks it up for the dog as well, so that they're not they haven't got the camera in their face the entire time, and they're not just having their photos taken. So when we walk to each different little location, they get to have a little break and a pause as well. Yeah. The beauty of the farm for dogs is there's no other people and there's no other dogs, so they don't have those distractions that they would encounter if we were going to a park or a beach. And then we basically do so we don't, obviously walk around the whole property, but we do a loop section and then kind of walk our way back up and finish up the top back of clients car and yeah. And so I do things like I take water along for the dog, make sure client has water for themselves. At the moment, because it's been really muddy, I'm getting clients to bring a change of shoes. They can wear their gumboots to walk through the muddy puddles and the cow pat and all the rest of it. And then when we do some family photos, they can put photos, they can put some nice shoes on. So, yeah, so it's kind of a typical session, and then generally, I get them back within one to two weeks to come back and view the images and purchase their favorites nice

9:53  
Yeah. So you've been doing this for what, professionally, for five years. Yeah.

10:00  
So just over five years I quit my job and walked in about August 2019 so yeah, I think I did my first promotion around November 2019

10:08  
Yeah. So what do you think

10:13  
has been the biggest lesson you've learned being a pet, professional pet photographer, like, as far as photography goes and like taking photos of dogs, what is the biggest challenge you've had that's really taught you something?

10:28  
Do you think? I think when I started out, and I think a lot of photographers find this as confidence is a huge thing, and we're our own harshest critics, and I think it ties back into the statement I said before, imperfect action is better than no action. I think sometimes you just have to kind of put yourself out there and trust in yourself and your skills and your techniques and your editing, all of that will improve over time. But if you waited until you thought everything was perfect, you'd never get there.

10:58  
So kind of fake it till you make it.

11:00  
Yeah, that's kind of thing that's kind of thing that's been a little bit of my motto for it was, but it definitely the beginning was fake it till you make it. Because confidence was a huge thing for me, and because I've been through a couple of major life events, my confidence had taken quite a knock. And so when I first started out and dealing with clients, I was really quite nervous, and your demeanor and how you can come across clients pick up on that. So it is really important to just own what you do, own your pricing and put yourself out there. And if you have the confidence about it, then your clients will trust in

11:33  
that as well. Yeah, yeah, that's such good advice. Yeah. So definitely confidence.

11:39  
Believe in yourself, trust in yourself. If

11:42  
you were talking to someone who was kind of, you know, playing around with doing some manual photography now thinking of starting to do it as their own business. What's some advice? You would guess for someone in that position,

11:57  
I think the biggest thing was starting out in photography is everyone's really excited about doing photography and being out there with their camera, gonna give everyone a harsh reality check. But the reality is, if you're professional photographer, you probably have your camera in your hand about 10% of the time. 90% is on your computer. It's accounting, it's advertising, social media networking. So doing the part of it that you love is a very small percentage of it, which is being out there, taking the photographs and obviously editing and culling as well. So I think it's really important, from a business perspective, is to understand that it's not just about getting out there and taking the photos and editing them for the clients. There is all that other background stuff that has to be done and all the different hats that you have to wear. The big thing, I also think, is it's really important to know your cost of doing business, so that you can charge appropriately. So you need to know what your expenses and outlays are, what your cost of goods are. How much do you actually want to be making a year after GST and tax? What do you expect your average sale to be, or want your average sale to be? How are you going to get there to make that happen, and how many clients do you need to achieve that? And it can be frightening when you first sit down and work all of that out to see what you actually need to be earning to be able to make it as a profitable business end income, to be able to make a living off and be able to pay your bills and your mortgage. So I think it's really important. And again, it's a confidence thing when you first start out as well, not to underprice yourself and the market, because not only do you do yourself a disservice, but you do your fellow photographers who are doing it professionally, trying to make a living out of it, a disservice as well. Sure, everyone has to start there, and when you're first learning, you might want to do some model calls and get the practice, but if you're going to do it professionally, you need to charge and you need to charge what you're worth. And that comes down to believing in yourself and what you're producing for your clients as well. So you've got to know your numbers, and you've got to revisit them regularly as well.

14:14  
And we've seen so many people out there, right who just like, love taking photos as a hobby, and maybe like taking photos of their animals and their friends animals, and then end up just, you know, taking all these photos for free, and not realizing that they're actually taking business away from photographers are doing doing it professionally, right? Yeah.

14:36  
And I think also, like people that start out and want to do photography professionally, if you start out that way, then you're going to end up burning out, and you're going to realize very quickly that you can't sustain that for a long period of time and make a living and pay all your bills without kind of burning out at the other end. Yeah. And it's, I mean, look, it was certainly a learning process for me. I used to edit every single photo before I showed them to a client, and then I would have, sometimes a client taking one photo, and it's like, I've just spent like 40 hours editing that entire session and they've taken one photo. It's not sustainable. It's not economical. It's not going to pay your mortgage. So you really have to look at your business practices and your workflow and your numbers, so that you can make sure that you can if you know, photography is a great thing, and it's great to be able to do something that you love, but you you still got to make sure you can live off of it as well. Yeah, it's

15:35  
a really hard balance, though, right? Because, like, obviously, like, you want to get out there and take those and practice. You don't want to just go out there straight away and start pre charge. So, yeah, yes. Would you say? Like, go out and, like, take photos of your own dog or animals, take those of your friends. And then if you think you want to start doing it professionally, then really, like, consider, you know, yeah, all those things that you said for all your costs, and then come up with a price that kind of makes sure that you're making a profit and paid well for the hours you're actually spending on and so there's a

16:11  
lot that, I mean, there's a lot that goes into pricing like you. Obviously, you need to know all of your cost of doing business and your cost of goods. And so you need to research your products. What products do you want to sell? And it can take a while at the beginning to find out. Even once you are charging clients, it can take a while to find out what items sell well, what items don't. And so you can find yourself kind of rejigging things a bit in that kind of first 12 months, at least. It's like an evolution, a bit of a work in progress, but it's really important to do that research so that you start off on a good foot. If you price yourself too low in the market, you essentially shoot and burn. You will burn yourself out eventually, and you will realize that you're not able to kind of make a living from it.

16:59  
Yeah, yeah. And it's sad when you see that happen to people, right? Yeah.

17:02  
And it takes if you're not doing if you haven't looked into it well enough and researched it and set all the backing process up and knowing your numbers and their photography, people love it, but very much, once they start down the process, if they haven't done it properly, they can end up not loving it, and that's a shame, because photography can be very therapeutic and very enjoyable thing to do, and there's nothing worse than having the business side make you not enjoy what you love. Yeah? So it's a fine balance. Yeah, yeah.

17:35  
Do you still get out often and do personal projects and take photos of your own dogs and stuff? Yeah? I do. So

17:41  
I get out and I photograph my own animals. I've done trips away and photographed dogs and scenic locations, and I'm just in the process of fitting out or converting a shed to a studio space. And so studio is very new to me, and it's something I've had to do to diversify as a photographer as well. Obviously, down here on the farm and doing outdoor sessions, I am at the hands of the weather gods, and with the farm and the torrential weather that we had last year, the farm flooded four times. So I have to diversify. I've got to be able to have studio as a backup option. So that's a learning curve for me at the moment, but it's also fun, because it's new, it's exciting, and there's lots of creativity and things that you can do in the studio space, other than just scouting for very scenic locations outdoors. So it's really important to have personal projects to work on as well, to make sure that you're keeping it fun for yourself.

18:47  
That's how you can really, like, grow your own, like, personal style, and, yeah, develop your unique style as a photographer, right? Just to try different things, like you said before, like you just got to get out there and do it. And even when you're like, as good as you right, you've still got to get out there and, like, try new things. And yeah,

19:07  
absolutely. And I think it's really important not to judge yourself against others, not to copy others. It's really important to find your your own unique style. And sure, it's okay to look to others for inspiration, and certainly if you want to learn different techniques and how others do things, but always make sure that you take away and put your own spin on it and change it to make it yours, so that it's your own unique style. There's a lot out there that just looks the same at the moment, and it can be really overwhelming when you're trying to find what you like and what your style is. But I think if you've got your own style and you're doing something a little bit more unique than others, it helps you stand out from the. Crowd as well. So, yeah, really important to, you know, seek inspiration, but don't copy. Make sure you put your own spin, your own take on it. Yeah,

20:08  
I often, like, really want to get out there and try new things and try, like, do a personal project or something. But sometimes I'm just like, I'm so busy and, you know, like, life just gets away on you. How do you manage to kind of overcome that and get out there anyway and push yourself and do some personal projects? I

20:30  
think it's one of those things, and it is so much easier said than done, but you have to make the time. One thing I do is because I will have different stages of where my brain is active and very creative, and other times when nothing is happening. So I have notes on my phone, and if I get an idea, I just type it in there straight away, so that if I find myself later on, I've got time and I want to go and do something, but I've got no ideas. I've got a whole list that I can refer to, to pick from. I find it's a little bit easier, like at the moment, I've got a couple of 10 month old puppies, and so there's motivation for me there to make the time to get out and photograph them while they're still babies. So that helps, that helps. But, yeah, it can be hard because life is busy, but I think it is important to make the time for the creative projects, because when you are in the business and you're working on the business, and your brain is on the business, 24/7, it can become unfun, and you can lose some of that spark for the photography that you love and enjoy. So it's important to have a personal project or creative project that you can work on as well, just to help keep it that spark alive. Yeah,

21:44  
yeah, totally. What is your favorite, the shot that you've taken that you love the most personally? Um,

21:56  
I would probably say I've got two favorites, and it's my own animals, and both of them are right in front of you. One is this one, and one is that one. So one is my first dog, my heart dog, Shelby, and she was photographed on a log on my front lawn, and it was one of the first images that I entered, my first time into entering the iris awards, and I got a silver for it. Awesome. And it's very hard putting your own images that have a very emotional connection on there to be judged by others. And then another one I have is of my

22:41  
cap that I lost earlier this year,

22:46  
and again, it was just taken on my front lawn at sunset. But it's one of these photos that whenever I have it up at expose, or when people come into the studio, they are just instantly captured by it. I say with him, he's got eyes as white as the moon, and they just again. They've got that that deep kind of connection looking into the camera and it captures their personality. And those are probably two of my favorite shots, because they're personal and have meaning to me, but I have favorite client shots as well often, which I use on my samples in my my little space here, I've got a bernese mountain dog running on the beach at Raglan, and it was literally really gray, and it was raining behind me, and it was kind of miserable weather, but I've just got this joyous shot of him bouncing towards me and with his tonal colors, like it just worked out really well, but the weather was really cruddy. And that's probably one of my favorite client images that I've taken. Was

23:57  
saying, sometimes it's really hard, like when you're talking about awards entering something that's really personal in there. And I've heard this debate with myself, like, when I'm entering awards, do I enter, like, a photo that I really love into the awards, or do I enter something that I think is going to

24:18  
that the judges are going to like?

24:22  
And I think personally, I've learned, like, I just need to, like, put in there what I love, because you never know what the judges again say. But what would you say about that? Yeah, it's,

24:31  
I think it's very hard getting critiqued on your work, whether it's a client image or it's a personal image that means a lot to you. I think the thing with judging is that you can get some really good constructive feedback out of it, regardless of what type of image it is. But I think at the end of the day, you have to kind of remember, to a degree, to take any feedback with a grain of salt as well. Yeah, because judging can be very subjective. Obviously you've got technical components to it, but you've also got the emotion side of it, and what that can evoke in the judges. So you know, you could have a panel of five judges up there, and they could give feedback on your image and it might not score well. And then if you put a panel of five different judges up there, they might give it top marks. So it's yeah, it's, I think it is a good thing to put out, put yourself out there. And I think for the most part, you will always get some form of constructive feedback that you will sit back and eventually go, Yeah, you know actually what? They're right? And I, if I did that and tweaked that, that photo would be better, little bit harder to do when you're putting in a photo that you have an emotional connection with to separate that.

25:54  
So, yeah, you were a judge for the iris awards this year, right?

25:58  
Yeah. So I've judged for the IRS awards for the pep category for the last two years. So relatively new to it myself. How

26:07  
did you find that though, being on the other side of the judging, being the judge,

26:12  
it's, it's really fascinating, and it's, it's, it's really great, being part of a team, in a part of a panel of judges, because sometimes you'll find you're all on the same page, and other times you can have very differing opinions. I think when you do find yourself in that spot of having having a differing opinion from other judges is important if you believe in that photo and the story it's telling you and how it's speaking to you, that you fight for a new advocate for that image and for that photographer, so which can be easier said than done, but it's good judging, I think, going and viewing the judging. So like, initially I entered awards, and again, it can be quite a shock when you get the feedback, especially like if you don't agree with it, or, you know, whatever. But when you go along and you view the judging live, and I would always encourage people, if you've got the opportunity, Iris as a free event, you can go and watch the live judging. You can see all the images. It really is quite fascinating to hear people's perspectives and what they're reading into their image and the story that it's telling them. And I think once you've done that, it kind of can help give you a different perspective. On awards as a whole and judging as a whole and submitting your own work, I think you're always going to learn regardless. And yeah, judging, for me, it allows me the opportunity to kind of step back and look at someone's image and not only look at it from a technical perspective, but the emotion, and what does that bring out in me, and What connection do I have with that image and the story it's trying to convey? So, yeah, it's very different.

27:50  
Yeah, would you recommend someone who's just starting out in pet photography that they enter the wards awards to help them grow as a photographer?

28:01  
Yeah, absolutely. I think especially when you're first starting out. I mean, again, it can be difficult if your confidence isn't good, because then if you get feedback that isn't so great, you kind of can take it harshly, but you need to learn to just kind of step back, because you will always get good, constructive critique that will help you improve your photos. And I think when you're starting out, because there is so much to learn, not only with how to take the photo, but how to edit and process the photo, that that critique can be really beneficial to helping you improve quicker. Yeah, yeah. But you just you gotta have a little bit of a tough and shell to deal with it. Yeah, yeah.

28:40  
You just touched on editing. Then there's something actually we haven't talked about, yeah, when you're editing your photos, do you have a particular workflow or way that you would edit your photos? Or, yeah,

28:54  
so I kind of, I try and do, like, an initial cull on first import port of the photos. Then I will do a second cull the following day. And then I generally walk away and leave it for a couple of days and come back. I'm very indecisive, and I probably spend far much more time on culling than I should, but that's the that's what works for me. It's different for everyone. And then I kind of do that third curl. Once I've done the third color, then what I will do is do all my basic color and tonal adjustments in Lightroom. And I generally, because my lighting will be different because I'm moving around to different locations, I will do batch processing on each different location and Lightroom just to speed up the process. And I generally find once I've done the tone on color adjustments that I color a little bit more then as well, and then I just select a few of my favorites that catch my eye to fully edit for the client before I show them. So, yeah, it's, it's, it's a process over a few days for me, because I'm a little bit undersized. It. And also I kind of always keep in mind, I always show a little bit of variety of like, dog with their mouth open, dog with their mouth closed, tongue, out, tongue and that sort of thing. Because how I see a client's dog and how they see them are two completely different things. So you've obviously

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