S15E02 | Sub-niching as a pet photographer: hunting, underwater dogs and fall adventures
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As if niching into pet photography isn’t a defined enough market, today’s guest, Kristen Murray has gone even more specific and has created three sub-niches that she serves; bird hunts, underwater dogs and fall adventures- and it is working! Her clients are spending multiple thousands for wall art and box sets or albums, and better yet, she enjoys these adventures with her clients!
For the first half of the episode, I asked Kristen about finding these clients and then we got deep into photographing hunting. The episode comes with a warning, we did discuss what those photoshoots look like, including the details of one form of hunt in particular so if you don’t want to hear about that, just fast forward past. I’ll put a little warning at the time.
In the members’ half of the interview, Kristen really was an open book, talking about why she’s showing her clients lots of images, and how her process avoids the overwhelm that might otherwise come with that.
We also spoke about her pricing structure, popular products and client response.
On top of all that, she got into the specifics of how to get started with underwater dog photography, and we spoke about her newest offering, travel sessions!
WARNING: We spoke about hunting in detail between minutes 11-15 of the first half. The conversation around photographing hunting dogs continued from a more business perspective after that until minute 22.
We covered:
Kristen’s Journey to get to 6 figures from year one
Who is Kristen’s client
Photographing hunting
Getting into the specialty and the most important things to know
IN THE MEMBERS-ONLY EXTENDED EPISODE:
Showing 100 photos +
Average spend and pricing
Underwater dog portraits, the pricing differences and selling
Travelling dog photography
Mentioned links:
Coaching with Karinda: Master your mind and money
Join Kristen and Ewan on their upcoming retreat in Scotland!
www.woofventuresretreats.com
Kristen Murray
Kristen Murray Photography, USA
Kristen Murray is a traveling dog photographer specializing in outdoorsy adventures, upland hunts and the art of bird dogs, along with underwater dog portraits. With a deep love for dogs and a passion for nature, Kristen's work captures the beauty, energy and wild spirit of canines in their natural element.
Transcript
As if niching into pet photography isn't a defined enough market, today's guest Kristen Murray has gone even more specific and has created three sub niches which she serves, bird hunts, underwater dogs, and fall adventures. And It's working. Her clients are spending multiple thousands for wallah and box sets or albums.
And better yet, she enjoys these adventures with her clients. For the first half of the episode, I asked Kristen about finding these clients. And then we got deep into the topic of hunting. The episode does come with a warning because we did discuss what those photoshoots look like, including the details of one form of hunt in particular.
So if you don't want to hear about that, Just fast forward past it. In the members, half of these view, Kristen really was an open book talking about why she's showing her clients, lots of images and how her process avoids the overwhelm that might otherwise come with that.
We also spoke about her pricing structure, popular products, and the client's response to that. And on top of all of that, she got into the specifics of how to get started with underwater dog photography. And we even spoke about her newest offering, which is travel sessions. This episode truly is jam packed.
So let's dive in.
Welcome to the Pet Photographers Club. Tune in as experts share their insights to help grow your business with higher sales, creative marketing, and kick arse business strategies. Now onto the show.
Hello, and welcome to season 15, episode two of the Pet Photographers Club. I'm your host, Kirstie McConnell. And today I'm chatting with Kristen Murray of Kristen Murray Photography. Welcome to the club, Kristen. Hi, thanks so much for having me. It's so Yeah, it's so nice to have you on the show. After three or four failed attempts of actually pressing record here, all my efforts have come to my end for some reason.
We've made it, so Happens. And it's so nice to chat with you after, you know, seeing your work for quite a while now. It's nice to have a, Kind of a proper chat with you, but just for the listener who might not recognize your name yet, can you just give a brief introduction into who you are, where you're based in the world, and what it is that you offer at Kristen Moran Photography?
Yeah, so I am a outdoorsy dog photographer. I'm based in Richmond, Virginia but I have a little van life van and I travel and do some dog portrait road trips. About once or twice a year. And my specialty is like outdoor adventure dogs in their elements, just doing their thing. You know, whether that's bird dogs in the field or just, you know, like out on a hike and then in the woods and the mountains yeah, so that's a little bit about me and my photography.
So just give us a bit of a backstory. How long ago did you launch your pet photography business? So I went I quit my job in the middle of the pandemic in July of 2020. So actually this is. Three years this month, which seems crazy. I, it had always been like a hobby before, but I decided to go full time and I never looked back.
It's been good. And I know you're like, you're not doing it in halves either. I mean, you really push this into a proper business really quickly from what I gather. Oh, yes. Yeah. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that journey? I mean, how you went from zero to a hundred in like, just like, gosh, how did it really go?
So I know that like photography can be really slow in the summers and the winter. And I think what has really helped me You know, reach six figures continuously since year one is the fact that I stay busy the entire year. So I've niched down into like three main things. In the summer I do underwater portraits.
In the winter I do upland hunts and bird dog stuff. And then in the spring and fall, I've got my, you know, adventure family type portraits. So the fact that I'm able to stay busy the entire year is really what I think has, has helped me work. Alrighty. So you've got these clients that I'm guessing from what you just said, they come to you first and foremost.
For, or they first become clients of yours because they've got a bird dogs or they're, they're hunters and then they kind of stay in your funnel and also, you know, end up doing shoots, the other types of shoots that you offer or can it sometimes be the other way around? It, it, it varies a lot. I think it depends on the time of year that they find me.
If they find me in the summer, they'll probably, it's because they're looking for, you know, fall family portraits. If they find me in the winter or, you know, I'm doing a lot of marketing for bird dog stuff, you know, they'll, they'll stick around for the following year. It happens all sorts of ways. Yeah.
Okay. Well, that makes sense. I mean, depending on what you're marketing at, Each given time, I suppose, I know you've only been doing this a few years, but from what I understand, they've been three good, successful, busy years. So if we can compare like those let's break it down into those three different types, you know, the underwater, the hunting stuff, and then the family stuff, which one is your best moneymaker?
Probably the, like, if you look at all three years as a whole, probably just the adventure women with their dogs. Family, you know, with or without kids, I would say that is probably the highest followed then by the upland dogs, followed then by underwater. Okay. That makes sense to me because I mean, already pet photography is a niche that.
I mean, yeah, okay. Maybe it's been around 10, 15 years in the U S now, but in some areas, it's still new. Alrighty. So I'm imagining that, you know, people are actively searching for, or at least a bit more familiar with the concept of, you know, sort of more standard pet portraits in your area, especially being U S based, but maybe the other two like sub specialties of, you know, the hunting portraits and then the underwater stuff.
I mean, I don't know what the, what the portion of people is organically kind of going to find you because how many people are actually typing in that, you know, do they even know that that's a thing yet? You're kind of still having to market that niche, but that's just my assumption. So how are you actually, you know, what is it in your experience?
Are people finding you organically for those two or are you really having to market those? You know, I think it's, it's a mixture of both. I have had a lot of people just on the just. Googling and, you know, I've done a lot of SEO to work with, you know, both underwater and the upland, but I think really what's put me on the map with that is just partnering with like canine pools, partnering with preserves, getting out there and networking and actually getting.
In front of people whether that's through events or partner marketing. But yeah, I, I do have people who found me on Google and they're like, Oh, I didn't know this was a thing, but I have a pool and I would love to do this. So it's a, it's a lot of fun. I do always try. To at least get like a little bit of, you know, the standard family photos, whether we're doing an upland hunt or whether we're doing a pool.
So I'll typically, you know, start with everyone's looking nice. Okay. Now let's go out and hunt or, Oh, everyone's looking nice. Get a few shots there. Now let's get in the pool and you know, so it's, it's a mixture of both. Okay. Okay. Nice. I was just trying to get like a bit of a picture, you know, like how's it going for you because it seems like.
Okay, so I'm gonna I was a specialist pet photographer and I just focus all my energy on that one thing. That's all I have to do. That's the whole reason that I never photographed also like just standard families or weddings or newborns because I didn't want to have to split my marketing efforts between like all of those things.
You've kind of gone and done that like you, but instead of being newborns and weddings, et cetera, you're doing like these sort of sub sub niches, I suppose, subcategories. And so I was just wondering like, how's that going for you? Do you find it exhausting? Or people naturally searching for you anyway, or is it actually easier?
Because like you said, at the very beginning, you just target like the different marketing strategy, depending on the season, I suppose. Yeah. It's you know, since I, since I'm canine only, right. And I've thought about like adding equine and doing these things, but since I am. I think it is a lot easier because not only am I dogs only, I'm like adventure outdoorsy dogs only.
I mean, I'll, I'll take a dog into the city every now and then. But the, the, the people who come to me, they come to me because of that. And it's, you know, whether it's underwater or bird dogs or. Let's go hike in the mountains. It's, it's kind of all encompassing under that, like, outdoorsy adventure. Mm hmm.
Yeah, sure. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier, Kristen, that you go to, you mentioned events, actually, you said, like, partnerships, collaboration, and, or events. Give me an idea of these different events where you're finding these these clients who want to do one of these. that you offer. Yes. The last one I just did was just that a vineyard, they had a lot of different people there and it was very dog friendly and I just, Standard event.
I bring my displays and I just I just get out there and talk to people. I have my dog with me. So and she's a little Brittany puppy. So she brings a lot of people over to my booth. Nice. That's what you wanted. Yeah. So. Okay, so that was a normal kind of normal. It was just a day out kind of nice nice event that was being hosted.
It wasn't specific for, for adventure kind of families, right? Yeah, yeah, it was just, it was just a standard normal pet related event. I mean, those pet related events or even not, like they'll, they'll bring in all mixes. And since I do offer like the family portraiture you know, for. For dogs and their people, I think it, I've kind of got a little bit of something for everyone, you know?
But I, I do tend to lean towards like. Yeah. We're going to, we're going to go have fun. We're going to go get dirty. Like if you just want me to come to your backyard and like do a porch session, probably not your girl. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Okay. So let's focus our, our conversation now on the, the bird dogs or, or the hunts that you do.
I want to ask you a little bit about how have you felt within the industry against, or not against, but among your peers who maybe this could be a bit controversial.
If we're going to be honest here, I put blinders on. Okay. I'm not going to change who I am and what I'm, what I'm doing. And bird dogs are bred to hunt. And I grew up a hunter, I eat meat,
yeah. I, I just, I put blinders on. I don't know. That's great. I mean, I can't get into it. I was interested in how that's going for you because, you know, as a. pair photography in, in our world, if you do kind of immerse yourself in the industry, I did feel like you would get quite a bit of pushback. And I was just wondering how you were personally dealing with that.
And I love that you just put blinders on, you just ignore that.
Have you had, I remember I'm not a hunter, okay, so excuse me for my ignorance here a little bit, but have you had some, any kind of incident with your clients that maybe makes you a little bit uncomfortable?
Maybe they're using different practices to you or is that not really? Yes. No. Yes I was on a duck hunt one time and I said, I will never do this again. It was a, I didn't know it was when I was first getting into bird hunting. So I grew up deer hunting with my dad. So I've always been comfortable like around guns in the woods, you know, hunting but I wasn't ever a bird hunter and I didn't know the first thing about like what a tower release mallard hunt was and it was.
Heartbreaking. And I was like, I can never do, I can't do this again. And I won't, I will not photograph. So I have been, I have had to like put my foot down when it comes to certain things, but we can go on a wild duck hunt all day long, but I will not do like a. a tower release mallard hunt. Okay, okay, you can kind of explain a little bit what that means because I just thought all duck hunting was wild duck.
Basically, no, so it basically, it's really good, so people use it for training purposes, but basically you, you throw a duck up in the air and it flies and you shoot it. Okay. Okay. Like it's not hunting. It's killing to me. And I, I can't get behind that. You know, a wild duck hunt, you're out and like, I don't know, a cornfield or something.
And you like call the ducks in and they, you know, you, they have a chance to get away. They have a chance to survive. This is just not what I'm for. I probably should have put a little bit of a warning ahead of that before I I'm actually going to put like something in the show notes so people can choose if they want to listen to that or not.
Did not mean to get to that. No, no, that's, I, I mean, this is real. I mean, this is part of your job and I think it's really interesting for us to learn. And as pet photographers, if anybody wants to get into, yeah working with bird dogs that are doing what they were bred to do, then this is some, some things I think that's helpful to understand.
So. Yeah, it's a harsh reality of it. Exactly. So, on that note, actually, what would you say, like I mean, just then you said that you come from a family of deer hunters. And so actually you had to learn also about, you know, the differences in this. So I didn't know the first thing about it. Okay. Okay. So what kind of, I don't know, like advice could you pass on to the listener who maybe thinks, you know, I'm okay with that.
I'm, I'm comfortable going out, you know, the afternoon with them and their dog or whatever, capturing that. But they know nothing about it. They don't come from a hunting family, or maybe they've just been with like a cousin once. Like, that's me. Yeah.
Yeah. So I would say if you were going to do this, don't just like put a call out and say, Hey, we're going to go into the woods and like, You know, photograph your dog on the hunt. I would definitely reach out to either like, bird dog clubs or a preserve nearby that you can go out with a guide and kind of just see what is happening and just say, hey, this is something that I'm interested in.
I don't know the first thing about hunting, but I want to see what this is about. I called up the preserve and I was like, hey, I photographed a, I mean thank you. I definitely wasn't this confident when I, when I called them but I was like, Hey, I photograph dogs. You know, I would love to come out and just like, follow y'all on a hunt and, you know, document your dogs out there and, you know, see if this is something I would, that, you know, we could work together with.
It's a lot of cardio involved and, and you know, some people will be okay with you, you know, being right up in the action. Other people will be like, Can you say, you know, X yards away? So it really depends on the guide and the hunters and the dogs and your comfort level too, because we're out there in the middle of the field with guns.
Accidents do happen. They can happen. You need to be aware not only of, you know, where the dog is, but where you are, where the birds are. There's a lot of risks when it comes to You know, doing this hunting photography and if you're not comfortable or competent or, you know, know about gun safety, I would say definitely familiarize yourself with that first and foremost, before you just go out and, and photograph this, but is there a go to organization or body where a photographer could go and ask them like, or, or learn, do a course or something when it comes to gun safety and the very basics.
Yeah, I mean, so in the states, we have like hunter education courses. I don't know if they have that globally, but I mean, I would say that's probably a first. Just check with your state department for hunters hunter safety education. But again, it's, it's, it's really more just kind of like. Getting in and seeing, you know what?
I should just film myself out there and like, just show people what it's actually like. I think I'm going to do that. All right. Good. Mission set. Okay. That's great. I mean, I think that's a really nice actual advice. I mean, I, I feel like there would be some, some listeners that would maybe be interested in doing this, but like I said, it's like completely foreign to them and maybe they're like me.
Like. You know, I don't want to do it because I, I don't know anything about it. I had this quite strong opinion on that, like that you need to know your subject. Because back when I was studying photography, like a gazillion years ago, as part of my course, we were given like, you know, different assignments and one was sport.
And I contacted a friend of mine who's girls, like daughters did gymnastics. And I asked like, do you think that, and they were very involved with their local club. And I said, do you think that, you know, the club would allow me to come and do like a fundraiser day? And because me being me, I've always had like this kind of business first brain.
And so even though it's the first assignment, I was like, okay, how can I manage? Anyway, so, and by the way, it wasn't in business at this point or anything. Yeah. So I asked, do you think your club would be interested in doing this fun during the day? And I can come and set up my lights and photograph, you know, all of the kids, you know, doing a couple of poses each and it'd be like school photos.
That's what I thought in my head. Yeah. And the mom that I was friends with, she, she said, yeah, I can organize it. And, and she did, we did it afterwards. I went and like showed all of the parents photos and they basically hated all of them. Not because the photos were bad. Like the lighting was fine. It was all like, you know, typical school kind of photo college photos.
So like perfect.
Yeah. Everybody on the beam, like kind of boring, but there was nothing technically wrong with them. But from the gymnast point of view, they were completely useless because, you know, their feet were at the wrong angle, their hands, or they were like somewhere random me there. And to me, they looked beautiful.
They were kids having fun, you know? It's the same. It's the same. Yes. Yes. Yeah, nobody bought anything basically. I learned a lot. That was a great lesson for business. Know what you're photographing. And it's the same reason I photograph show dogs. Because I'm not in their world. So I wouldn't know how to do it.
And I'm guessing, and you just agree, that it's the same for you. It is I learned trial by fire, so I, I just learned by like taking photos and then talking to the people and just being really honest, like I would let them know. Hey, I don't know the first thing about bird dogs. I think your dog looks great.
And they were like, Oh, it's the tail is not set at the right angle. And I'm like, in the beginning, I was like, well, you could have told me that while we're in the field instead of now. However, now I'm like, Oh yeah, I can see that in the field. And so what I'll do is kind of like, You know, shift my body and have, like, the grasses cover, you know, whatever is not looking right, but yeah, there's a lot of a lot of nuances with the styling of bird dogs, and even sometimes, like, the intensity in their eyes.
I've noticed that when I try to stage photos, They have a different look in their eyes than if it is a real, like, you know, we're just, we're on a hunt. So I've stopped doing stage photos because they look staged and, you know, to, to the lay person, they might not be able to see that, but like the owner definitely can tell.
And then the more you're in it, the more you see it, but yeah, there's a lot of also like really good there's project upland hunting dog confidential. I've been published in both of those. There's. gun dog magazine, cubby rise, like a lot of these magazines and you can just like do some research and then NAVDA.
That, you know, you can just do some research and like, look at the dogs and look to see what people want. Yeah. But there, there is a lot of nuances to it. Yeah. I imagine. Cause even now, like I'm thinking about photographing working dogs, like on the farm, you know, and I'm picturing like my, my cousin trains Kelpies to work with.
Livestock and I'm picturing like how his dogs, like they love it. The dogs, they absolutely love it. The look that they get in their eyes. Like you were just describing that the bird dogs, it's work and it's intense. And but then there is also a fine line, like a dog that's still maybe in early stages of training or something.
They can get over aroused. And so then like my cousin have no use for a photo of this dog that was like over aroused to use for marketing purposes, for example. So, yeah. But even as the, as the parent or as the owner, you wouldn't, you probably, you don't need that photo either. So yeah, I think that's really interesting and great advice to flick through some magazines and kind of see like what they publish.
Yeah. And, and the more you, like the more you get out there and you photograph and you see, and you get around the people and you talk to them, like you'll, you'll catch on pretty quickly if you just have an open mind of like, Oh, okay. Well, yes, I think this is a great photo, but here's. what could be different.
Yeah, the more you do it, the more you'll, you'll get into it and learn. And I want to get into a bit more conversation around, you know, what it is that these clients come to you for, if they're coming for wall albums or social media, or if you're doing commercial stuff, I want to get into all of the details of that, but I'm going to save that for For the members, I reckon get some juicy details.
So what we might do, we might wrap up part one now. But just before we do that, I know you've got some exciting stuff coming up in the future that you might want to tell the audience about a little bit. So maybe first of all, you can tell the audience where they can go to check out what it is that you do the best place to stay up to date with what it is that you do.
And also a little bit about this retreat that's coming up. Yes. Yes. Okay. So personally, you can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I'm at Kristen Murray photography. And then the, my website is just Kristen J Murray. com. And that's a Kristen with an E N. And then, yeah, so we've got a pet photography retreat happening May 5th through the 11th.
I think those are the right dates. 2024 in in Scotland, I've teamed up with you and Shane of Mutley's Snaps, and we are going to have a week long retreat of you know, all adventure outdoor on location. We're going to cover a studio photography, a little bit of business, a little bit of mindset, marketing practical strategies that you can take to help grow your photography business.
So it's going to be, it's going to be a blast. Excellent. And is it aimed at a particular level of photographer or it's suitable for everybody? You definitely have to have a working knowledge of your camera. We are not going to teach that. But it is gonna be for established or soon to be established pet photographers who just wanna grow.
And you know, just have have some success in 2024. Cool. Nice. I will pop up the links to that as well as your website in the show. Yep, you can find that at WolfVenturesRetreats. com. Perfect. I'll pop it in the show notes, so guys, if you're interested, go and check it out. That'll be just before the next Italy retreat for the, with the Peptographers Club, so maybe you can do them back to back.
Yeah, that'd be great. That's if about one of this episode. If you're a member of the club, of course you can continue listening to part two in the Member zone or via your private r s s feed in your favorite podcast player. Don't forget, if you're not a member yet, you can join today. It's just 10 bucks a month and club membership includes tons of perks, bonus content, and of course the end of this episode too.
So just head on over to the pet photographers club com to find out more. Thanks so much.
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