Are you a talented photographer who also loves pets and wants to start your own business? A pet photography business is one of the easiest businesses you can set up, and it’s very profitable too. Pet owners spend over 70 billion dollars on their pets every single year. You can take some of that action doing something you love, while also making pet owners very happy.
Set Up a Photo Studio
One of the simplest yet most expensive things to do when you are considering starting a photo business is to set up your studio. You’ll need space, lighting, backdrops, and more in the studio so that you can shoot the pets on your location. A retail location is good, but you can also set up a portion of your home and land as the studio.
Ensure You Have the Right Equipment
You’ll need to use professional camera equipment, lighting, backdrops, and so forth to impress your customers. You don’t want to do this with your iPhone, but with a real camera that requires you to focus and set up everything to get the best pictures possible. You may need to take a class.
Work with a Professional Printer
If you don’t want to house the photo printing equipment, you can probably find a local printer who will handle the printing portion of your business. You should be able to electronically upload the images for the packages you want to create with a good local printer.
Practice Your Technique All the Time
Photography is a skill that will get better with experience. As you learn new techniques and learn more about your camera, your images will become more professional over time. Even when you aren’t working, keep practicing all the time.
Offer On-Location Shots
You can start right away without a physical studio if you can carry around your equipment in your vehicle, by offering on-location shots of your on-location pets. This is especially helpful for large animals like horses.
Create a Variety of Packages
Develop a variety of packages so that people can buy from you even if they’re not rich. You don’t want to underprice yourself, though, so create several packages that they can choose from at various levels of service that are priced competitively.
Price Your Services Competitively
When you are pricing your services, the best thing to do is to check out your competition to find out what they are charging. You don’t want to look at their prices and automatically charge less. Instead, look at the value they provide, match that, and then exceed it and charge more according to what the market can bear in your area.
Market and Advertise Your Service Online and Locally
Set up a website and social media so that you can market your services locally. Most of your business with this type of set-up will be in your local area. When you get popular, though, people will be willing to pay you a lot of money to travel to them, so get ready for that.
Pet photography is a fun way to use your talents and your love for pets together to create a livable income for you and your family. You can grow this business, or you can keep it small and still make enough to take care of you and your family. You can charge from $250 and up for your services, even up to $5000 a session for some types of photography.
