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Welcome to the Hair of the Dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley and today's special guest is Haron joining us all the way from the Netherlands. If you want me to pronounce his last name, you're just going to have to wait until after the intro and to hear me attempt, and then he can correct me. Stay tuned. Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host, pet photographers, travel addicts, chocolate martini, connoisseur, Nicole Begley, everybody Nicole here from the hair of the dog podcast. And today I have a special guest all the way from the Netherlands. Now I'm going to introduce him and I'm probably going to mess up his name because I've been practicing and trying. And I did it well once, but I don't know that I'll be able to do it well again. So I would like to introduce you to Haron Haghuis, I don't know. Haron. Go ahead and pronounce your last name appropriately for us, please.

It is pronounced hot house.

Hot house. Oh, almost a house. Yes. Alright. Third million times a charm. A house. Alright. I love it. I love it. Excellent Heron. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to chat.

Thank you for having me.

Of course, of course. If you guys don't know Haron. You should definitely check him out because his work is absolutely stunning. So beautiful. Simply gorgeous. He's also a guest instructor in the Hair of the Dog Academy. So his class taking one of his edits and creating a moody edit is one of our most popular guest instructor classes. Everyone loves it so well done. So it is an honor to have you here today. Um, yeah. Tell us, I guess a little bit, first of all, how long have you been photographing?

I have been photographing for about five years now.

Yeah, that's amazing. That seems like it's a drop in the bucket. That's when he started really picking up the camera and learning the camera stuff. But you have a little bit of a background in some other graphic design type stuff. Correct?

I do. I do. I've been dabbling in Photoshop since I was about 14 or 15. I think I did start a couple of unique programs somewhat in that direction. Can't finish them, but, um, I do experience there. Yeah.

Yeah. That's awesome. Do you find the Photoshop part of your work? Like I know some people just love to get in Photoshop and find it super relaxing. Like, do you love that?

I'd see. Not necessarily. I can get lost in my editing sometimes, so I get that. Some people find it relaxing. I actually find it more of a challenge to well get most of my photo done and actually in camera, but I'm glad that I do have the option of editing. So it's there, but ideally I wouldn't need it too much.

Yeah, no, I think it's a great goal for all of us to get everything as correct as possible right there in camera when we first captured that image because yeah, time is money and there's definitely, there's definitely, if you know, you love Photoshop and people enjoy getting lost in there, like, you know, to do that for an image here and there for relaxation sure thing. But if you're going to do a session and you have 20 images from a client and you're expected to do like heavy Photoshop for all of them, that becomes pretty exhausting and, and you have to be really charging a lot more to account for all that extra time that you're sitting in front of the computer, you know, in order to still be as profitable as if you're able to, to start nailing that a bit in camera. So definitely a good goal.

Well, I think it's to each their own. I know some people absolutely love spending all that time in Photoshop and they make amazing work. So I guess more power to them.

Yeah. There are certain images. I know sometimes I'll sit down, like if I have a print competition image or just an image that I just want to play with, I find that really relaxing. But I think if I had to sit down and do that for all of the images for my session, I would, I would find that to be a little stressful and overwhelming, but yeah, I mean, everybody has their business set up differently and that's totally fine. That's the beauty of having all of our own businesses is we can create whatever we want to create. Just a word of caution. If anyone's doing that much Photoshop, you definitely need to make sure that, you know, if you're running the business that you're getting paid to do. So if it's a hobby, then you can spend all the time in the world. But, um, yeah. Heron. How did you get started with dogs? Was there something in particular that made you start to love photographing dogs or, um, you know, how did that happen?

I've loved dogs all my life, but it was when we had our own dog that, well actually we, we had the dog first and then the cat in later. So I started bringing a camera on walk, started taking shots of my own dog and posted them online just to see what the response was. And that was quite good. So at that point I figured I might as well try and photograph other people's dogs. I can create the same type of images with the, with their dog. And that's what I did. I started doing photo shoots with other people, a couple of portfolio shoots at first, and then later on I started charging for them.

Nice. And the rest is history. That's fantastic. So, yeah. So when you started your business, you know, I guess you started doing this, you started having some models and then you realized, Oh, well maybe I should make this a business. Did you just kind of throw up a website and kind of just do like an all-inclusive digital thing to get started? Or what did the business look like in those early days?

Well, it was more or less that I started doing 10, I think, 10 free shoots, free portfolio issues just to have some material to show. And after that point I started charging wasn't a lot, but at least I was making some money off of my hobby.

Right. Yeah. The gear doesn't get any cheaper.

Yeah. And that too was great motivation just to be able to afford new gear at some point off of the shoots that you do. Yeah. That's a great thing.

Nice. And then how long has that been? Was that about five years ago that you started doing that?

Yeah, that was, that was about five years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. Very good. And you're in Netherlands. So, you know, it's a smaller country. Are you serving the entire country serving just your smaller area, where to, where do most of your clients come from?

They come from all over the Netherlands. Actually I live in the East, then a lot of my clients come from the Western South. It's a bit of travel time, but Netherlands, isn't that large. So it's, uh, it's doable. Yeah.

Nice. Are they mostly coming to you or are you heading out to them to photograph?

Yeah, they mostly come to me. I have an area that I love to shoot in and I know where the light it is. I know, I know all the perfect spots for my photo shoot, but they really want to I'll travel to them.

Do you have any trouble convincing people to come to you? I know sometimes it's better now, but at least gosh earlier in my pet photography journey. And when I think we all kind of start off being a little bit nervous to direct our clients and to really, you know, we want to please them and we want to do what they want to do and want to make them happy. So they'll be like, Oh, okay. I just want to do the shoot in my backyard. And so you're like, Oh, okay. But then you get there and they have like a little yard with just a fence and the light is horrific and you know, there's just really challenging to make any sort of beautiful image in their backyard. So I only did that a couple of times and then I started to learn. All right, I need to get a little bit more, um, more, what's the word I'm looking for? Just, um, convincing them that, uh, I needed to stand up for myself really and just say, Hey, we, if you want the images that you see on my website, we need to go here or there, or, you know, have these different locations. We can't do it in your backyard. Um, I do sometimes Google though. I Google maps their yard and see if they have like a whole bunch of beautiful property. And then I'll be like, okay, yes, we can do it at your house, but not your house. Um, so I think that's a hard lesson for a lot of us to learn when we're starting to photograph dogs. And even, especially when we're model calling or we're just starting to take money. Cause you feel like, Oh, I can't possibly tell these people what to do. So it's a little bit nerve wracking. So if you had trouble convincing people, long story short to travel to you to your special places, or are they usually pretty open to that?

I think the first thing that helps is arching a significant amount of travel costs. Yes. That's the usually quite convincing and I do it on purpose because eventually it's in their best interest as well to be in an area that I know I can take great pictures. Um, I can't say I've ever really had that many issues with location in that regard, but it is a bit of a learning curve you have to, I think it's not just location is the entire shoot in general. Um, learning to take charge because you know how to get those photos when your client doesn't, it can be scary. At first I get that I've got clients that seem to think we were going on a walk and I just snapped some pictures in between. And that's just not how I work though. I'll tell them though, we're going to visit a few spots we're going to be spending about, I don't know, 20 minutes there and you're going to hear me click a lot. And uh, that's just to make sure that we, we have to have great images, a bit of education on our part, I guess. Yeah.

A hundred percent. I feel like that's a really important piece of the puzzle is being able to educate our clients about that. And you know, so they know what to expect. I know one thing that I always educate my clients on is the dog's behavior for the shoot because you know, their clients come in, they're all nervous about my dog's not going to behave. And they have this whole stress in them about I've, you know, investing in this shoot. And if the dog doesn't behave, we're not going to get good pictures. And you know, they get all in their head. So I like to tell them really at every possible opportunity from the consultation on the phone to when we start shooting at the session and then continue as we continue shooting into the session, you know, Hey, just let your dog relax. Your dog's doing great. If I'm setting the dog up for, you know, I see where I want to shoot and I have the scene and I want the dog about right here. I'll let them know, Hey, have the dog stand right here. It's okay if they sit or stand. Um, because sometimes I really don't care if the dog sitting or standing, I just want the dog there. And however, the dog is going to be comfortably, uh, standing or sitting comfortably being there is fine. So, you know, I just let them know. Or if they were sitting, then they stand up. I just say it. So it's okay. He can stand. Cause otherwise they're just sitting there and then they're like, sit, sit, sit, sit, sit. And then the dog's like, wait, what, what are you saying? Oh wait, but she's trying to get my attention over here. And it becomes really stressful

If they're about 20 times they grow a middle finger. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. They're like enough of you. Um, yeah. And you know, and I think our clients appreciate having a little bit direction because they've never been on a photo shoot before. They have no idea how this process works. And if we're photographing them with their dog, a lot of times I know so many pet photographers say, Oh man, I hate being on this side of the camera. If they're being photographed, which you know, we need to remember when we're photographing our clients with their dogs and, and how much better, you know, you can feel if you have somebody telling you, okay, sit like this. Oh, you're doing great. Okay. Now do this. And you know, just a little bit of direction goes a long way.

Yeah. To be honest, I'm not the most talkative person on a shoot because for me that'd be forced. But I do tell them, look, as long as I don't give you any direction that you're doing fine. I'll tell you,

Um, going back a second too, I really love how you charge more for your travel sessions because you know, the beauty of having our own businesses is that we get to decide where we want to shoot, when we want to shoot, like what basically box we want to play in our business. And I am a firm believer in that we should never really say no to our clients, but it's completely okay. And I'm actually encouraged that saying yes, comes with a cost. So, you know, Hey, can you come photograph me three hours away? Sure. It'll be an extra, you know,$500, whatever number that is, you know? So I think that's a, a great way to do that for people that maybe don't want to photograph on weekends or don't want to do their smaller sessions on the weekends or, you know, whatever it is we get to make the rules. So you can definitely train potential clients through price and encourage people to do what you want them to do by pricing things a certain way. So yeah. Speaking of pricing and things like that, you started off doing, uh, you know, the all inclusive digital kind of thing with your business. Is that something that's still, that you're still doing or are you moving more towards products? What's your main products now?

Uh, right now I'm still doing digitals that's because of the market in the Netherlands because people are more or less used to it. But I do want to make the switch to just selling products and maybe, maybe sell the digitals, but a, a larger price. Yeah. I started doing digitals of course, but at that point, people would receive a lot more images than they do now. Um, right now, I guess my cheapest package would be, uh, three files. I, I no longer focused on quantity. I just want the best three images. And that's what they do. Once we switched to selling products,

Did they get to choose their three files? Like you sending them galleries or are you doing

Gallery of five choose from so they get options. But, um, the way I see it is clients choose me for a reason. They see my portfolio or they, they appreciate the images. So if they want those images and it's probably in their best interest to, um, leave the, the, the largest part of the selection up to me, um, as soon as you show a client, their own dog, they tend to view it very differently from, um, images that are not their own dog. So they, they tend to ignore a large part of the image and just focus on the dog expression, which is very important, of course. Um, but you can't, you can't expect a client to rate their images technically.

Yes. That goes to, I think all of us has had the, the situation where we go over our images with a client and you're so excited for like these two or three images from the session. You're like, man, they're definitely gonna take these and put them really big on the wall because they are awesome. And then they choose something else and you're like, well, no, no, not that one, this one. So my new rule that I learned a few years ago about culling my images after a session is that if I'm not okay with that image going really big on a wall, it doesn't get shown because they will choose that one every time. So, yeah. So did they have to choose then their package before they book your session? Like the, if they wanted the three files and you're only showing them five versus, you know, one that, where they're getting more selection or more files?

Well, it's still fairly flexible thing is, um, if they choose the cheapest package, they might get a somewhat shorter photo shoot. So you, if you choose a larger package up front and you're guaranteed that we're taking more time for the photo shoot, maybe get some more locations so that I can actually guarantee the variety in them, but they still have the option to upgrade after the fact that that happens a lot still. And I think that's also because I, I do give them five images to choose from, right? And often you'll see that people will want a fourth or fifth image or even asked for more images, which I can for five. But again, that's that extra cost.

Nice, nice full disclosure. We had started to have this conversation before and I realized that I had forgot to hit the record button. So we're rehashing this again. But before we were talking a little bit about the fact that in all of our markets, whether you guys are in big cities, small, smaller areas, even more rural areas, you might just have to cover a larger, a larger piece of land. There are always people that, that value service, there are always people that value, not a better experience, a more high-end experience where everything is getting done for them. So they don't have to do anything DIY that you are providing them with, you know, beautiful final products. So yeah, I feel like that is available just about anywhere and a great way to do that is to, you can still always who came and test it to where you have, you know, the digital packages. And then you start putting in a package that has certain size wall piece, like a 16 by 20 wall piece. And it includes the digitals too. And then it becomes just like a no brainer where they're like, Oh, well that can have all of these over here. And then you can just raise the digitals only. So if they do chose the twos, those you're like, Oh, okay, whatever, I've been paid enough for that, that's fine. It doesn't hurt my heart as much. Um, but yeah, that's a, I don't know. I feel like a lot of people get in their own head because no matter where you are, there's always going to be people charging less than we are. It's just absolutely impossible to compete in this industry on price. I actually adjusted a podcast episode. It was, I'm not sure what number it was, but it was one of the ones right before this one error. So one of the most recent podcast episodes about pricing and the fact I was on Facebook a week or two ago. And there's an ad for this company that is offering free mini shoots and it's like haed shots or families or newborns or pets or whatever, any kind of genre you can think of free mini photo shoot. And the files are$15 each. I was like, good Lord, no way that like, you know, no one could compete on price because you're not getting any less expensive than that. But you know, you have that, that, that particular service is looking for the people that don't want a luxury service. They are looking for basically fast and cheap. They don't necessarily care about the quality of it because they're not able to choose their photographer. They're not able to look at their works. It's a whole different animal. So I think we get in our heads thinking that, Oh, we need to compete with that. But in actuality, we're at a whole different it's apples and oranges. We're, we're not competing with that at all. What we offer is completely different. It's like, Ruth's Chris steak house versus McDonald's like, they can both exist in the marketplace. They just have very different target markets and very different experience. So we need to decide who we want to serve in that marketplace and, and just work all of our messaging and our products and our education. And you know, all of our conversation on social media, around how we want to run our business and serve our potential.

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Also, I think that those, those cheaper photographers, like you said, there is such a different market. I just don't think, They're not your competition. As far as I'm concerned. At some point I decided not to worry about prices of other photographers anymore. I've noticed that the cheap you are, um, knowing general, uh, that the clients don't really get better cheaper. You are as a photographer. Uh, it seems like more demands and complaints flying seem to have, I have found the same. Yeah. I've been happy to have moved away from that. Yeah.

Yeah. Because when you start to raise your prices, you're attracting the people that are hiring you because they value what you offer. So then they are, you know, they're deferring to the professional. Yeah. For instance, just yesterday, I got my first post COVID haircut and color. It's been many, many months the grades were taking over and I went in and I sat down and, you know, I trust my hairdresser. She's been doing my hair for this. I moved here and she's like, what do you want to do? I'm like, I don't know, what, what do you think I should do? And I told her that I was liking the length and I liked how it was styled. Like, you know, what it was doing. So, you know, I like kind of that cut and, you know, and then even with the color, she's like, do you want it the slight, do you want a darker? I'm like, I don't know. What do you recommend? You're the professional, you know? So when you value the relationship you have with somebody or you value the services that they're offering, you actually seek their advice. If I was going to a$10 haircut place, I can, yeah. I can guarantee you. I wouldn't say, okay, whatever you want to do, you know, I'd come in with Pinterest pictures and magazine cutouts. And I feel like the same thing happens in the photography industry, where, when you have the more inexpensive offerings and you have these clients that aren't paying as much, they're the ones that come to you with like this Pinterest board of some black and white and some selective color and some really dreamy edits and some like high, uh, high definition, like HDR type stuff. And I'm like, we want all of these. You're like, well, that's like five different photographers. Um, and I'm also a huge believer in dialing in your style a bit and curating the look that you show doesn't mean you can't shoot something outside of that look, but really making sure that the work that you're showing to the public looks like it came from the same person so that when potential clients are looking at your body of work, they know what they're going expect with your, I mean, your body of works very, I, I, you know, your, your work is very, um, curated and beautiful and very complimentary. It all goes together very well. If you could tell us the same artist, how long did that take? Was that kind of a process when you were starting out to try to figure out what it is you liked and what you wanted your style to be? Yeah.

I think we all start out, um, experimenting, trying all sorts of things. Um, I guess this is just a process. This it's kind of grew on me at some point. I was doing certain edits that I personally liked. So I, I kept doing those, but I never really never really got, um, hung up on developing a personal style. I do. I do think that producing consistent quality is very important, but I think as long as you keep doing what you like, what you love to do that style will come it's, it's not, um, that should be forced, I think, uh, yeah, at this point, it's just trying to get my images up to a level that I'm comfortable with, that I, uh, that I want to produce, but it's never really been in a way that I want to force a certain style if I'm married.

Yeah, no. And I feel like that style is something that it will always evolve, you know, as we become attracted to new things and learn new things and just, you know, push ourselves to take our art and our craft a little bit further, that's definitely something that evolves. And it's definitely something that takes time. I would say, I don't think I actually like had an idea of what my quote style was till probably seven years into my business when I really started to, to really hone in on like, Oh, wait, I'm starting to see the pattern of what I really love in my work. And I'm starting to be able to like, have this collection of work that looks different than others and all very cohesive together, you know? And, and it, it just takes time and it just takes experimenting and continuing to, to learn that and learning different techniques without just copying somebody else and saying, Oh, I think my style should be just like Haren's. So I'm going to learn how he did it and do it just like that. No, no, no. Learn how he did it to take bits and pieces of that and to combine it with everything else that makes your work stand out to be your own, um, yeah, a hundred percent. And I think the other challenging part too, is that as humans, we try to compare our work to everybody else's. So we're comparing our work on, you know, year two of our journey to somebody else's work on your eight of their journey and nothing good comes from the comparison. The only comparison that we should be doing is looking at our work now versus looking at our work last year and comparing ourselves to where we were not comparing ourselves to, to where other people are, because that's just ripe to get in your head and get a little doubt on yourself.

Yeah. That's just flat out the demotivating what I always tell people, as well as the, you don't get to see, um, the images that went into the bin, um, you just see their best work and it seems like fires are relief when I tell them that, well, I take crappy shots as well. I'm just a bit faster in deleting them now. So yeah, definitely just, just make the comparison with yourself and even then don't compare, shoot the shoot. I say that, but I still tend to do that. It's just not a realistic goal. I think, cause you'll have situations that just don't allow for the same quality as the shoot before you progress over a longer span of time. And then you're growing. If you ended up disliking the work that you did last year, that's when you grow. And I think I'm not saying that you hate your work, but I've heard people complain about the work they previously did. And I just tell them that that's a good thing.

Yeah. Oh my gosh. I know. I look back on some of my first clients. I want to be like, um, can I give you a free shoot to reshoot? Because my God, that was terrible. I almost feel bad, but all part of the process. Yeah. That's all great advice. And what other advice do you have for people that are maybe just starting out, they're trying to learn these different things. They're trying to, you know, a lot of us are self-taught. I know I was self-taught I never went to school for anything photography related, so it becomes pretty overwhelming sometimes trying to figure out, gosh, what do I need to know? Where do I learn it? What do I not know that I should know? Um, and you know, finding people to help. But if, if you were to, to look back and give yourself advice, you're just starting out self, what advice would you give them?

I would say, um, never forget the basics. Um, and I still catch myself doing that from time to time. Um, cause you're at a point where you've, you know, the basics we think, okay. Um, let's go for a bit more of a complex image. And, um, I do that at times where I find is really nice location, but I end up taking pictures that aren't that great. Um, and it's usually because I'm trying to make it too complex, whereas, um, I think that really, sometimes you just have to go back to the basics and focus on quality. So look at your lighting, look at your composition, look at, uh, things like closing a dog. Is it stressed or not? Uh, all those things. Um, they, they, they're just things that can't always be fixed through editing. And I get a lot of requests from people that want to learn editing. And in a lot of cases, I have to convince them that maybe we should look at the way you shoot first. Sometimes it's just good to go back to the basics and um, see, see what might be gained there.

Yeah. That's great advice because I see that a lot too, where someone will post that will help me fix this image, but the way it was shot, the lighting is so not, not ideal that you just can't change. Certain things like editing. The goal of editing is to take what we've created and Polish it and make it even better. And editing often cannot fix poorly shot images. So, you know, that, that back to basics is so critical that we need to have that, that good foundation of camera settings, you know, make sure that your shutter speeds fast enough, that you have a sharp image that you have properly exposed images that there's decent lighting on the dog. You're not blowing out highlights or clipping all your blacks. You know, just in, like you said, to knowing that dog's body language and this, that dog stress, and what's the expression of the dog. So many things we need to remember, which is where that practice definitely comes in. We were talking about this on round one that I forgot to record about the learning our basics of. I remember when I was learning how to shoot manual and it seems so overwhelming at first where it was like, Oh my gosh, wait, it's too dark. So I need to up my ISO, but I can't up my ISO too much, but Oh, if I opened on my aperture, then my depth of field maybe is too shallow and Oh my gosh, what should I do? So many things to move? And then you keep practicing and pretty quickly, all of a sudden you're like, Oh, it just snaps. And you're like, I've got this. And then it becomes second nature. And it's so much second nature with me and my camera now that when somebody asks me if I'm teaching and they're like, okay, what, which one should I use for back button focus? Or which button does this or that? And I'm like, hold on, let me hold your camera. Cause I honestly don't know what button I'm pressing. I need to like, hold my camera and be like, Oh, it's this one because I don't look at it. It's all just muscle memory from, from the practice. And yeah, just learning those basics and being able to, to compose or create a technically correct. Starting piece of work is going to be able to get you so much further because then you can start to learn these different editing techniques and you know, getting real creative with it. But if those basics aren't there, it's going to be really, really hard. So back to basics is always a good, good foundation. I love that.

You want to be enhancing your image and not fixing all the issues that you could have fixed on location

Again, time. Remember we want to get it right in camera. So, you know, if you pull it in, correct, you don't have to spend the first 20 minutes of your editing trying to fix something that could have just been fixed by changing one setting on your camera. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for this awesome podcast. The conversation number two was even better. The conversation one guy. So don't worry. You didn't miss anything. It's great. I really appreciate you taking the time. If people want to find you let us know where, where they can find you and the interwebs.

Well, I'm actually still working on, um, my proper English website. My current fill. That might be a bit. Yeah,

That's okay. Everyone's just wants to see the pretty pictures.

It's just my name. So I'll pronounce the last name again, but with Heron a house. So that's H a G H U I S. And that's dot com, but that's a, that's still a work in progress, but they can also find me on Facebook, which is usually where I post most of my images. Right.

Are you active on Instagram as well? Not as active as they should be. That's okay. That's probably, it's like mythology for many years. Perfect. Awesome. We'll have people find you. And if you guys have enjoyed this interview, definitely reach out and let Heron know. Thank you so much that you enjoyed this. And, um, yeah, he is a guest instructor in the Academy, which you can find his course there and his course is also available to purchase on its own. If you don't want the rest of the Academy content. But of course you do. There's so much good stuff in there, but anyway, Heron, thank you so much again, I really appreciate you taking the time. Um, so talk to you soon. Hey, pet photographers, are you struggling to bring your vision to life? Do you long for creating a style that is true to you? Are you ready to leave the fads and trends behind and learn how to create a style that is uniquely yours so that your work can stand apart? Here at Hair of the Dog, we are hosting a free five day unleash your style challenge to help you do just that registration is open now. So go to www.hairofthedogacademy.com forward slash unleash to save your seat. We can't wait to see what you create.