Capturing paws and tails

In the era of technology and high-quality cameras, when every model has a portfolio, why can’t pet dogs have their own?

Rodney Dass, 23 and Sandesh Kunhanandan, 23 do exactly this!

Both of them are students of New Horizon College of Engineering and incidently had different passions and decided to combine them.

Sandesh was always interested in photography and began pursuing it since he was 19.

“Back in 2012, Rodney’s dog, Ginger had a terminal illness and on her last few days he wanted me to click a few photos of Ginger so he could make a portfolio to remember her. Everyone heard of this and after looking at the portfolios, we got a lot of positive response and decided to do this for any other owner who wanted a portfolio of their pets,” said Sandesh.

That’s how their company, ‘Oh!For the Love of Dogs’ began. Rodney was skeptical about it in the beginning because Bangalore had few to no dog portfolio companies but he also thought of this as an advantage.

Rodney added, “When we began, we decided to start by photographing people who wanted their own portfolios and slowly we spread the word about the company by putting up fliers in pet shops and animal clinics. It was an out-of-the-box idea and it was more of a passion than a profession. So we knew we would enjoy what we were doing. The only thing we aim to achieve is client satisfaction. Till now, we have received a lot of positive feedback and are looking forward to doing much more.”

Asked about the challenges they face, both said, “Promotions were a task and training dogs to pose and making them follow instructions is really difficult because they can’t comprehend what you’re saying, like people. So we have a lot to do even before actually shooting the dogs. We had very little capital and resources to inform people about our company. Social media helped us a great deal that way and helped us grow as a company.”

Akshay Rajaram approached them to make a portfolio of his dog Shadow, a Rottweiler.

“I wasn’t sure how Shadow would react to two strangers pointing an object at him and getting him to stay in one place was a huge task. The crew handled it quite well and with a lot of patience and they delivered very impressive results that I’m content with,” he said.

Both of them have also volunteered at dog shelters and promote adoption of street dogs.

They aim to capture the special bond owners share with their pets through their photography.

When asked about their plans for the future, “We want to expand by getting more photographers to help and we hope to accomplish this soon. We have also planned to give them other merchandise like souvenirs, calendars and mugs if they’re interested,” they  said.

They photograph the dogs at the owner’s house or any place of their choice.

They wanted to provide clients who came to them for their services with something they can treasure and keep forever.

At the end, they both agreed that nothing more mattered than the happiness they see on the owner’s face after receiving the pictures.