Photographing Dog Beds

To present our products as honestly and precisely as possible is very important in order to give our customers and prospective customers the best chance possible to determine whether our first class dog beds are the right ones for them. As the internet is the number one option for an increasing number of people when they want to purchase good dog beds, photographs of the items are simply essential. It is also, from a business’ point of view becoming more and more demanding as the internet image quality is getting better and more professional all the time. We have to keep up, making nice images of our amazing dog beds. OK, 75% of our sales are via Word of Mouth or reorders because customers have seen our waterproof dog beds or perhaps our raised dog beds at friends’ houses and decide they want one or customers simply come back for more when they receive one, so that all their dogs can have a Tuffie. But as we are placed on page one in Google for the phrase Dog Beds, we obviously have prospective customers, who see the site and want to know more. When they go in to our shop, they need to be shown an honest and true picture of our products. And that is no mean feat, but we do get it right when we try hard enough.

We have a studio here and the old saying “Never work with Children or Animals” becomes very true. We have “models” coming to our studio, who are supposed to be very well behaved dogs, but who don’t know the “Lie down” command.

Some dogs are well behaved, but they are nervous and won’t stop panting. When you are a dog with a small understanding of photography, the studio looks worryingly like something a veterinary surgery might have.  And the lady with that scary camera could look like a vet. How are they to know that we just want them to lie nicely and still on any one of our Luxury dog beds and be still?

It all ends up with a lot of useless images that have to be discarded.

What often happens if the dog has potential for being a model, is that he or she is quite nervous at first and won’t sit still, never mind lying down, it pants and jumps out of the bed. Then, after some time, they start to get tired and the warm dog beds start to have an effect, so they begin to nod off, often against their will. If we all sit silently and quietly, the dogs often close their eyes for a little while and we get the chance to take the photos.

Others of course just turn up, see the gorgeous dog beds and jump in and fall asleep. My own dogs are certainly used to that. They quite like it when I call them in from the garden to model, they walk in, get in the warm dog beds and fall asleep. It’s quite a shame to wake them up when it’s finished.