Capturing the animals in your care at their best is a key component to showcasing how wonderful they are to potential adopters. A great photo can reveal not only how adorable they are, but also offer a view of their loveable personalities.
Great pet portraits not only contribute to helping animals get adopted; they help get animals adopted quicker, reducing length of stay and allowing shelters to open their doors to more animals in need.
Recently we have had the opportunity to work with several of our animal shelter clients on the design of dedicated photography rooms.
You don’t need a professional photographer or a lot of professional equipment to take amazing animal photos, but having a dedicated space, with the right set-up can help tremendously.
Here is what we recommend:
The room should be large enough for some storage, a couple of lighting tripods, a camera tripod, and for your photographer to maintain a few feet of distance from their subject. We generally recommend a 10-foot by 12-foot space at minimum.
Paint the walls a bright, clean white. This will help with your lighting. If your photographer or social media person is creative, consider painting one wall green-screen green so they can easily edit in visual backgrounds for engaging social posts.
Backdrop paper roll can either be rack-mounted directly on a wall or be used with a stand designed for this purpose.
Make sure the room has plenty of electrical outlets for lighting equipment. If you don’t have a lighting kit, this is a great thing to ask for as a donation. You can show donors, with photographic evidence, how much this small investment would help your adoption goals.
Storage is another important component to this room. If you want to have a storage closet, you will need to increase your room size to accommodate this, and it can be helpful to have a place to securely store this somewhat expensive equipment.
You will also want some purposeful shelving to store ribbons/neckerchiefs/bow ties/costumes, along with a variety of treats and cleanable toys to help keep pets engaged and calm during their photo shoots. Storage that will keep extra backdrop paper rolls clean and wrinkle-free will also be helpful.
Finally, as with any space where you will have animals in the shelter, the room needs to be highly cleanable. Paper backdrop rolls are great because the used sections can be torn off and disposed of leaving fresh paper for the next animal you are photographing. Ensuring the flooring in the room is mop cleanable is also really important to keep this room from potentially becoming contaminated.
In the grand scheme of things, incorporating a dedicated photography space into your building does not require a lot of infrastructure or financial investment and the potential benefits to helping the animals in your care find their forever homes sooner can be invaluable.
