Shelter-Me Photography

See schedule oprofessional shelter portraitsshelter-me Photography (smp) professionally photographs and promotes shelter animals at no cost to their caretakers. A trained smp photographer works with shelter staff to photograph whichever animals the shelter staff requests. Smp processes the images and provides web-ready files to the shelter for their website and uploads the images to its facebook page for sharing. The ultimate goal of the professional shelter portraits program is to improve the public's perception of shelter animals and encourage/motivate people to turn to their local shelter when looking for a new pet.the short-term goals of the professional shelter portraits program are to:1. Train and hire one or two professional shelter photographers in 2014;2. Double the number of Colorado animal shelters and rescues for which we provide weekly or bi-weekly service from 2 to 4; 3. Expand the number of smp image-processing volunteers to 12.4. Hire an assistant; and5. Teach ten workshops in 2014.our images have produced the following results:1. Shortly after posting our images online, the aurora animal shelter in aurora, Colorado reported that 100% of the animals we photographed had been adopted.2. Our images have facilitated the adoptions of numerous long-term, hard-to-place residents like puppo, a pit bull that had been in a no-kill shelter for over five years without a visitor! Four days after the shelter posted his picture, a woman called to inquire about him then drove over 100 miles to adopt him!3. Our images have facilitated the removal of dogs from death row and facilitated their subsequent adoptions, like with scooby (as told by his kennel manager ):"one of our pit bulls, scooby, had come back to us after a bite. Even though it was situational and not scooby's fault, he was now a pit bull with a bite history and in these times pit bulls only get one strike. Protocol said we should put this dog to sleep. Then i looked at nanette's beautiful photo of him. It was amazing. His beautiful eyes, one sky blue and one golden, looked back at me pleadingly. I simply could not do it. Based on that photo, i made a vow to scooby that we would find him the right home. It took many months, but the right person finally found him. He is now in his forever home. He is safe. Nanette's photo saved his life."4. After seeing one of our images, a shelter veterinarian adopted a dog he had not only already met but also treated!

See schedule oshelter Photography workshopssmp's shelter-photography workshop (spw) is designed to teach animal-welfare workers and volunteers how to capture, process and promote quality intake and adoption pictures of the animals in their care, regardless of skill, location or equipment limitations.the objective of the workshop is to improve the quality of intake and adoption pictures by improving the Photography and lighting skills of those who capture them.as one of the country's most experienced professional shelter photographers, smp's director, nanette martin, developed the workshop curriculum based on lessons learned throughout her 16-year career as a professional photographer, the last seven of which were spent photographing shelter animals.the long term goal of smp's shelter-photography workshop program is to equip shelter workers with the skills, equipment and motivation needed to produce high quality images of the adoptable animals in their care. Our 5-year goal is to teach these life-saving Photography skills to 1,250 workshop attendees at 50 workshops around the country. By doing so, we support our corporate mission to use professional Photography and education to improve the public's perception of shelter animals and facilitate their adoptions into forever homes.the animal protection association of Missouri is a great example of smp's shelter-photography workshop program success. Feedback from the shelter revealed that:visitors to their website were spending twice as much time viewing their images as they did before the workshop;adoption rates were up;marked increase in the number of facebook followers; andthe entire staff was energized and eager to assist with photographing the animals, even those working at the front desk!