About

Charlotte Gottfried

Paws 4 A Pic

My love for photography started in March of 2016 when I was taking pictures of my Australian Shepherd for Dr. Mari Jon Filla Dog Art Contest, a competition that allows the Doerre art students to enter their work in every year. I was using my phone and my point-and-shoot camera. My mom already had an old Canon Rebel camera that looked slightly more professional because of the use of depth of field and better quality. I started playing around with it, and my mom pointed out that I was very good at dog photography. Being the techy I was, I looked up dog photographers on the internet and instagram. One of the people I found was Kaylee Greer, a dog photographer from Boston, Massachusetts. One of her accomplishments was having her photo become the cover of this month’s National Geographic magazine. I also found a guy who calls himself the “dogist” because wherever he goes, he takes his camera and takes pictures of random dogs out with their owners. I would like to do that someday. Finally, I found someone named Charlotte Reeves, a photographer in Australia, who coincidentally had the same first  name as me, and had 2 australian shepherds of her own. She had just started a “learn pet photography” account on instagram, focused on tips and tricks to get the best photos of dogs. Inspired, I started a dog photography business. After pondering for a few days over a name, I settled on “Paws 4 a Pic” photography. I then used my knowledge of Graphic design to make myself a logo in Adobe Photoshop. I also made a website on wix.com. I would take pictures of your dogs for a small fee of $10 to donate to the Gleannloch Pet Committee and rescue. I would also take adoption photos of rescue dogs to be posted all over the web. One of my first rescues to photograph ended up going to Massachusetts, and another went to Canada. At the end of May, I invested in my own camera, a Canon T6i. I used it on my summer vacation in Utah, and then did many photoshoots outdoors over the summer. I am hoping to get an indoor set-up, with just some plain backgrounds. Dog photography is something that I would like to continue throughout my life, even just as a side job.