Queer pet portrait photographer in London

Two women booked a session in Victoria Park last autumn and spent the opening ten minutes apologising for their lurcher. He wouldn’t sit and he wouldn’t look up. He kept walking into the back of someone’s knees and then looking pleased with himself.

They’d come to a queer pet portrait photographer in London because the last person they’d hired had spent the whole hour trying to make the dog behave, and had ended up with forty photos of a blurred grey shape and two people looking stressed. Nobody wants that on a wall.

The dog was never the problem. The plan was.

Photographing an animal isn’t crowd control, it’s timing.

Why people look for a queer pet portrait photographer in London

Most of the enquiries that come through the roster for this aren’t really about the pet at all. They’re from couples who’ve been together six or eight years, who haven’t had a decent photo taken of themselves since somebody’s cousin’s wedding, and who happen to have a dog they adore.

The pet is the excuse. It gives you something to do with your hands and a reason to book, which for a lot of people is a great deal easier than ringing up a stranger and admitting that what you actually want is a nice picture of your relationship, taken before the pair of you look any older than you do now.

The other half of it is boring and practical. A photographer who already knows that the two people holding the lead are a couple doesn’t waste any of your hour working that out.

The first eight minutes

Dogs give you a short window and then they’re done. The good pictures nearly always come before the animal has decided this is boring, which in my experience is somewhere around the eight or nine minute mark for a young dog and even sooner for a nervous one.

So the photographer flips the running order. The shot you care about most, usually the one with both of you in it, happens first, while everyone still has attention to spare.

The wandering, tail-in-the-air pictures come afterwards. They don’t need cooperation, which is why they can wait.

Getting down to their height

Standing up and pointing a camera at a dog gives you a photo of a dog looking small and slightly guilty. A lead comes from up there too, and animals read the angle that way.

The pictures that work come from somewhere between ankle and knee height, which means the photographer spends most of the session lying on wet grass. Ask about it before you book if you’re precious about your own clothes, because you’ll end up down there too for the shots with all of you in.

Wear things you don’t mind kneeling in.

Where in London these happen

Borough parks do most of the work. Victoria Park and London Fields are the obvious ones, along with the stretches of Hackney Marshes nobody’s playing football on. They’re easy to reach with a dog and nobody minds a camera.

The Royal Parks and Hampstead Heath are a different matter. Both ask professional photographers to arrange permission in advance for a paid shoot, which takes planning and sometimes a fee, so if someone offers you Hyde Park on Saturday with no mention of a permit, ask them how that works. Plenty of east London sessions start near Hackney for exactly this reason.

Your flat is also a real option, and often the better one. You’ll never photograph a cat properly anywhere else.

When both of you need to be in the photo

There’s a habit in pet photography where one person holds the lead in every single picture and the other one hovers just outside the edge. It happens by accident, and then you get the gallery back and one of you is barely in it.

Say at the start that you both want to be in the photos properly. A decent photographer has already planned for it, but saying it out loud means somebody swaps the lead over halfway through.

If you’d rather not be in them at all, that’s a completely normal request too. Some people want a portrait of the dog and nothing else.

Cats and the ones who won’t go outside

Cats do this at home, in whatever light comes through the window, over a much longer and much lazier session. There’s no getting a cat to a park, and a stressed cat photographs as a stressed cat.

Rabbits are the same. Floor of a room they already know, somebody’s hand just inside the picture for reassurance.

Older dogs deserve a mention here as well, because a good share of these bookings come from people whose dog is thirteen and slowing down and who have suddenly realised they have almost no decent photographs of an animal they’ve lived with for over a decade. Those sessions run shorter and gentler. They’re worth doing sooner than you think, and nobody has ever told me they booked one too early.

What it costs

Sessions on the roster usually start around £500 and climb with the length of the shoot and how far someone has to travel to you. A short session at your flat with one animal sits at the bottom of that. A morning in a park with two dogs and a set of prints at the end costs a good deal more.

Every photographer on the roster sets their own rate, and it’s shown on their profile before you get in touch, so you’re not working out the price by email.

Prints are worth budgeting for separately. Nobody has ever looked at a pet portrait on a phone screen and felt what they’d feel about the same picture at A3 on a hallway wall.

Choosing the right fit

Look at whether they’ve photographed an animal that actually moves. There’s a lot of studio pet work out there that’s really product photography with fur, and it’s a different skill from following a whippet round a park in November.

Then look at how the people in their photos are standing. If every couple in their portfolio holds the same shape, they’ll put you in it too.

Ask what happens if the dog has an off day, because they will have an answer and it tells you a lot. Browse portrait options and go from there.

Common questions

How much does a pet portrait session in London cost?

Sessions on queer.photo usually start around £500, rising with the length of the shoot and how far the photographer travels. Each photographer sets their own rate and displays it on their profile.

Where do pet photoshoots happen in London?

Most happen in borough parks such as Victoria Park or Brockwell Park, or at home. The Royal Parks and Hampstead Heath need permission arranged in advance for a paid shoot.

What if my dog won’t sit still?

That’s expected and it’s the photographer’s job to work around. A good photographer plans the session so the shots needing cooperation happen in the first ten minutes, then takes the looser wandering pictures afterwards once the dog has stopped paying attention. A pocketful of treats and a familiar toy help, and nobody sensible expects a dog to hold a pose.

Can both of us be in the photos with our pet?

Yes, and it’s worth asking for it directly at the start, so somebody swaps the lead between you rather than one partner holding it in every picture.

Do photographers shoot cats and other pets?

Yes. Photographers shoot cats and smaller animals at home in natural light over a longer, slower session, since taking them to a park doesn’t work.

Ready when you are. See portrait options, or find a photographer.