One of my favorite things to do with my photography skills is to use it to help others.
One way I do this is every week I head over to Front Street Animal Shelter in Sacramento and take headshots of all the shelter dogs, cats, and (sometimes) bunnies too!
I’m joined each week by some absolutely amazing volunteers, who graciously spend their time helping me to get the best headshots of these animals.
It’s not easy working with shelter animals: not because they’re not perfect models (I mean, look at them!).
It’s because shelters are really stressful and uncertain environments. They’re loud, they’re scary, and most of the animals simply want one thing: to be in a new loving forever home.
Some of these babies have been really poorly treated, their spirits, broken.
Some have given up hope.
But we haven’t.
And that is precisely why we are there.
To give each of these animals the HOPE of finding their new FURever homes.
The way I can contribute is using my skills to help calm these furbabies and get them the best damned PAWtraits I possibly can with the short time I have with each of them.
Does it help?
Just look at these stats:
- According to https://adoptimize.co/, high-quality pet photos can lead to an 81% higher adoption rate.
- A study by Hearts Speak found that 64% of participants who viewed photos before adopting said that online photos were extremely important or very important in their decision to adopt a dog.
- The same Hearts Speak study found that dogs that appear happy in photos are most likely to be considered for adoption.
Clearly, a good photo does make a world of difference.
How can you help?
You can share the photos when the shelter shares on their social media sites.
You can share when I share some of the photos.
You can donate your time as a volunteer, or make a donation directly to the shelter.
You can also go to the shelter and set yourself up to be a foster.
Fostering truly does help save so many of these sweet baby’s lives!
Finally and most importantly: you can always always go in and say YES to a new family member.
I mean, just look at how happy that idea made Cher!!
Keep Cher happy and go adopt a new furbaby today 🙂
Be well and stay hydrated!
