Richie Schwartz’s Journey to Turning into a Pet Photography Pioneer

“People started asking if they could buy the after pictures,” he recollects. “That’s when I thought, maybe I should be doing this instead of working at the hospital.”

His first step into the sphere was a job photographing newborns door-to-door.

“I’d knock on 10 or 12 houses a day, five or six days a week,” he says. From there, he expanded into faculty portraits, weddings, households, and industrial work, ultimately opening his personal studio in Long Beach within the early Nineties.

A decade later, he was approached about doing pet pictures for Petco and PetSensible.

“I’ve always been a dog lover, so the idea really appealed to me,” mentioned Schwartz. The enterprise exploded, increasing to 300 PetSensible shops after which 300 Petco places. “To service 600 stores across thirty states, we had to hire photographers, train them, and build entire systems. It was exciting, but it meant a lot of time away from home.”

In 2006, he scaled again to start out a smaller tri-state-based firm. In whole, he’s photographed greater than 100,000 pets.

As time goes by, Schartz has watched the tradition round pets shift dramatically.

“Years ago, having a pet in a family portrait was unusual. Now it’s normal. I’ve even photographed dog weddings,” he mentioned. Dogs stay his major topics (about 90%) just because they’re best to work with. And irrespective of the species, the job isn’t with out challenges.

“Animals are unpredictable, and you still have to deliver perfect shots. Patience, patience, patience,” he mentioned. “And stay calm.” 

Schwartz can also be a longtime member of HeARTs Speak, a nonprofit that makes use of artwork and pictures to extend the visibility of shelter animals. Through this work, he has helped numerous animals get adopted by offering skilled pictures that spotlight their personalities, which is one thing shelters usually wrestle to seize on their very own.

Whether you’re chasing a pictures profession or your furry companion, Schwartz shares one important little bit of knowledge: “Pet Photography is as much about empathy and flexibility as it is about camera skills. The photographers who can tell the story of the bond between pets and their people are the ones who will really be successful.”