I photograph dogs. I have done since 2020, over a thousand of them now, mostly out in the Canberra gardens in the last hour of light before sunset.
I have more sessions than I can shoot, so I am looking for someone to photograph some of them for me.
The dog skills matter more to me here than the photography does, and I mean that literally. It is how I will read every application that comes in.
If you have worked as a dog trainer, a walker, in daycare, in grooming, or at a vet clinic, and you are handy with a camera, please keep reading. I can teach you the photography side. I cannot teach the bit where an anxious dog takes one look at you and decides you are alright.
What the role actually is
You photograph the session. I do everything on either side of it: the consultation, the planning, the editing, and the ordering appointment where the family chooses their artwork. So there is no editing, no selling, no marketing and no client follow-up in this job. What is left is the hour itself, and that hour asks a lot.
You will be working to a brief. Every client has already had a consultation and a planning call with me before you meet them, so you arrive knowing the dog's name, what they are like, what makes them nervous, which location we chose and why, what the family wants to remember about this dog, and what they are hoping to hang on their wall. Your job is to come back with that. If a family has told me they want a large print of their dog mid-run, and you bring me sixty beautiful portraits of a dog sitting still, the session has not done its job.
You will need to give me variety. I am after 60 to 80 images from a session, and they need to be genuinely different from each other. Different distances, different angles, portrait and full body, still and moving, with the family in frame and without, so the client has real choices to make when they sit down to design their artwork.
- Outdoor sessions only, across Canberra and Queanbeyan. Fetherston Gardens, the Yarralumla English Garden, Lindsay Pryor Arboretum, and around Lake Burley Griffin.
- Sessions run about an hour, sometimes less. The dog sets the pace, not the clock.
- Either at sunrise, or in the one to two hours before sunset. That means early mornings and late afternoons, so you need one or both of those free.
- You hand the card to me at the end. I do the culling, the editing, and the client's ordering appointment.
- No editing, no marketing, no selling, no client follow-up. None of that is your job.
Schedule
- One to two sessions a week to start, with room to grow as I take on more bookings.
- Mostly weekdays, with some weekends. Same rate either way.
- Sessions are scheduled well in advance, so you will have plenty of notice.
What matters most to me
These are in the order I actually weigh them.
- You read dogs well. Body language, stress signals, knowing when to keep going and when to sit down on the grass and wait.
- You are calm and confident with every temperament. I photograph reactive dogs, anxious dogs, elderly dogs and unwell dogs, and they all deserve a good hour.
- You can shoot to a brief rather than just shoot. Reading what a family said they wanted and coming back with it is most of this job.
- You are comfortable with more than one dog at a time, and with families and kids in the frame. Plenty of my sessions have two or three dogs, or a whole family standing there waiting for you to tell them what to do.
- You can guide people gently. The owners are usually more nervous than the dog is.
- You work to the dog rather than the clock. The session takes the time it takes inside the window we book, so you will not have anything else scheduled on either side of it.
- You are reliable and warm with clients. These families have been planning this session for weeks.
Photography experience
Preferred, but not essential. I will train you on my approach and on exactly what I need to come back on the card.
My clients order large wall artwork from these sessions, so the images do need to come back sharp enough to print big. Shooting in manual, working with changing light, holding focus on a dog that is moving. All of that is teachable, and I will teach it. It takes a few sessions to get comfortable and then it is yours for good.
How you get from here to paid sessions
I am not going to put you in front of a client in your first week. There are four steps, and either of us can call it at any point along the way.
- You photograph your own dog, then a friend's dog, then mine. No clients anywhere near it. You send me what you get, I tell you what I would change, and you go again. This part is unpaid, and it is essentially free coaching. Teaching photographers is my other business, so you are getting the thing I normally charge for.
- You come to a few of my sessions and watch. You will not be photographing, carrying gear or handling dogs. You are there to see how I work with a nervous dog and how I run the hour. Unpaid, because you are watching rather than working.
- You photograph a session with me standing there. This is where you start getting paid, at a training rate of $100 per session, for as many as it takes until we both feel good about it.
- You run sessions on your own at the full rate below.
To say it plainly: steps one and two are unpaid. I have built it that way because in those steps you are learning from me rather than working for me. I would rather tell you that now than have you find out later.
Reading a dog is the part that takes years, which is why I am weighting it the way I am.
Gear. You will need your own. For client sessions I would want you on a full frame body with a 70 to 200mm f/2.8, which is what I would recommend to anyone photographing dogs.
You do not need that on day one though. For the early training steps, whatever camera you already have is fine, because we are working on how you see and how you handle the dog. By the time you are shooting client sessions on your own you would want to be set up properly, and you will know by then whether this is worth it to you.
The details
- Payment based on experience from $100-300.
- Sessions are across Canberra and Queanbeyan, within about 40km. Anything further out we sort by arrangement.
- ABN required
- Starting soon. We can begin the training steps as soon as you are ready.
This starts as a six month engagement and I would love it to keep going well past that.
This is a lovely role for someone who loves dogs, enjoys people, and wants to be part of making artwork that families keep for decades, without any of the business side attached.
Two things to know before you apply
The images from my client sessions belong to Ina J Photography. They cannot go into your own portfolio or onto your own social media.
This role also includes a non-compete. While you are working with me, and for a period afterwards, you would not be able to run your own pet photography business.
I am telling you this now rather than at the end. If you are hoping to build your own pet photography brand, this is not the role for you. If you love dogs and like the idea of photographing them without running a business, it might be exactly the right one.
How to apply
Complete this form http://bit.ly/inajphotography-job
If this form isn't completed your application is not valid.
You do not need a resume if you do not have one.
It might take me a few days to reply, but I will get back to you.
Pay: $100.00 – $200.00 per hour
Expected hours: 2.0 – 5.0 per week
Work Location: In person
