We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Danielle Spires a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. What’s something crazy on unexpected that’s happened to you or your business

When I first started my pet portrait business, it was because I was trying to pay off almost $30k in vet debt from my senior cats getting diagnosed with cancer. My cat Noguchi passed away suddenly from lymphoma, and a few months later my cat Panton was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. I rushed him into surgery and he survived this incredibly rare cancer. This was all so sudden, but with senior pets these sort of things happen (I just wasn’t totally aware of it!).

I was so incredibly grief-stricken from the loss of my cat Noguchi. I wanted to work on something creative in his honor, and I started a personal series called ‘Saviours’, where I photographed pre-raphaelite style women with their pets. I was invited to show this series in an art gallery in LA, and started networking amongst friends and clients to finish the series. This led me to some of the most beautiful and remarkable images I’ve ever shot, with some of the most interesting and ‘alternative’ animals I’ve ever seen.

As someone that grew up with lizards, tarantulas, cats, hamsters, guinea pigs, giant millipedes (yes I know!!!), fish and everything in between, I felt really lucky to experience seeing how people interact with their pets and how much they love them, especially the “alternative” pets. I met a flemish giant, hedgehogs, bearded dragons, lizards, naked rats, naked guinea pigs, tarantulas, snakes, bunnies, cats and dogs.

To this day, it’s one of the coolest series I’ve ever created. I feel lucky to be a part of these pets’ stories as well.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My studio is focused on highly stylized, retro and vintage style portraiture, with an emphasis on pets. While I also work in commercial, product and headshot photography, I’m usually photographing pets.

I love dark humor, I love unique and stylized ideas. And I’m very lucky that I attract the type of clientele that also wants that.

Recently I’ve been working on commercial shoots, which include pet furniture brands, pet food products, a research project for a university and corporate style headshots. It’s been fun diving into these genres of photography and marketing, and I plan on working with a lot of big brands and companies in the future!

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

When I first started my business, I bought IG ads, tried to market the way big businesses were marketing, etc. and what I learned was people don’t respond to this type of advertising when small businesses do it. People want to see a person behind the brand, they want to feel connected to someone, and they don’t want to be sold anything. So I stopped. Now I post what I want, I make funny or kitschy videos, I don’t push for clients, and I stay unapologetically myself. This is why I feel like I have a community of pet-loving likeminded people that enjoy my content, and less transactional posts. I personally don’t like being hit over the head with advertising, and I don’t think other people do either.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I’ve had to learn to charge my worth. Overhead in LA is high, overhead for photography is high. And I have had HUGE businesses try to lowball me into free or drastically low paid jobs, and I just say no. At first, I took any and every job, big or small. This was great because it helped me boost my business, I paid off all my vet debt and I networked with a lot of people. But there became a point when I started to feel like I was working nonstop for very little money (after I paid overhead) and I needed to stop discounting myself. It’s lowkey imposter syndrome, and I still fight that demon.

I still am happy to negotiate, but I don’t let people push me around anymore.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.daniellespires.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/catpartypetportraits
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniellespiresphotography
• Twitter: twitter.com/catpartyletsgo
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@catpartyletsgo

Image Credits
Danielle Spires