As commercial animal photography specialists, we sometimes get shoot requests from pet brands who have had photo shoots done, but have never worked with a commercial photographer before.
They have only worked with retail pet photographers who specialize in creating imagery for personal use for dog and cat owners.
Some of the pet photographers they’ve hired in the past may provide some commercial photography services on the side, but a very small percentage of those photographers are experienced in the creative/production/process/estimating/usage/legal side of commercial work.
We’ll get more into that below.
First, the definitions of commercial animal photographer and retail pet photographer
A commercial animal photographer is a photographer that creates content of animals (dogs, cats, other small animals, farm animals, etc), exclusively for commercial use. They don’t create any content for personal or ‘retail’ use for private pet owners.
All of the content they create is used exclusively in advertising and marketing.
Many commercial photographers who photograph lots of animals create other types of content as well, like lifestyle content of people, exclusively for marketing and/or advertising ‘commercial’ use.
You can see many different types of commercial photographers- including those who photograph dogs, cats and other animals- here.
A retail pet photographer is a photographer that creates content specifically for pet owners of their own pets to hang/display in their homes, e.g. for ‘personal’ use. They typically don’t create marketing and advertising photos, which are very different in quality, composition, and style, from retail personal use photos. (More on that below.)
A retail pet photographer may refer to themselves as a ‘pet photographer’, ‘dog photographer’, or ‘cat photographer’.
You can see examples of retail pet photographers here.
Some retail pet photographers who specialize in creating content for pet owners but may also have measurable experience creating content for commercial clients may refer to themselves as a ‘pet photographer who also does commercial work’, or a ‘commercial pet photographer’.
The differences in verbiage are subtle, but important.
We’ll go over more of what all of this means below.
Style/photo differences
The style of a dog photo that gets printed and hung on a wall is often very different from a dog photo that is used in a printed magazine ad.
Investment/cost differences
Retail pet photographers = a much lower initial investment in ‘commercial’ photos, but a much higher long-term investment in ‘commercial’ photos.
Commercial animal photographers = a much higher initial investment in commercial-use photos, but less money invested over time.
So why would this be the case?
- Reshoots.
We’ve worked with many pet brands who have required re-shoots after doing a shoot with another photographer, due primarily to receiving content that may be cute, but isn’t effective at advertising or marketing.
2 shoots to create the same content = more money spent.
2. The cumulation of costs of low-budget shoots over time
The brands have hopped from retail photographer to retail photographer, expecting commercial-quality results, without really understanding the difference. On a per-shoot basis they may be saving money, but over time all of that money adds up, and still results in images that aren’t effective.
A company can either make an initial $15k investment into very high quality images that will be effective for 5/7/10 years to come, or a $20k total investment in many different shoots over the same time frame that all produce images that aren’t very effective.
3. The effectiveness of the images to sell a product and/or service
Retail pet photographers aren’t given creative briefs by their personal pet owner clients. And often aren’t given creative briefs by pet brands who hire them to create ‘commercial’ use if those brands lack experience doing photo shoots.
So there’s no target goals for the imagery beyond making a cute print. No marketing research, no focus groups, no competitor analysis, etc. All of these are critical components of commercial photography.
Our global pet brand clients often invest months of planning and research and decide media buys for shoots before they even contact us to book a shoot.
Commercial photography is only effective if you know the goals for the images, how they need to look specifically, what the placement is, and what the concept is for each image.
4. The quality of the imagery
Commercial photography is by it’s nature very high in quality. Typically substantially higher in quality than personal photos hung on a single individual’s wall, with the exception of a small percentage of very talented photographers.
The quality comes from the high-end equipment and lighting used, all the ‘hands’ on set (the crew), the pre-planning that’s done by the creative team prior to the shoot, the retouching of the photos, and other factors.
Hiring a retail pet photographer for your commercial photo shoot is like hiring an ice cream cart operator to cater your wedding food, as opposed to hiring a catering company. Ice cream cart operators fulfill an important role (and who doesn’t like ice cream?!), and while they may be able to cobble some non-ice cream food together for your guests, the results are unlikely to meet your expectations.
- The Differences Between A Commercial Animal Photographer and a Retail Pet Photographer - June 30, 2025
- The Benefits of Using Premium Stock Pet Photos - April 13, 2022
- 5 Examples of Hero Photos and B-Roll Photos - April 1, 2022