Meet Rohit Agarwal: The ‘ace’ pet photographer
Pet photography has evolved into its sub-category as pet parents become more extravagant, with specialists specialised in putting the animals at ease and offering options such as outdoor, indoor, or studio shoots; props or nature backgrounds; bibs, bowties, or tiaras.
Rohit Agarwal is a pet photographer who maintains the brand “Stills by Rohit.” He specialises in professional picture shoots with pets and pet owners and has carved out a niche in that industry. After working for large organisations like Amazon and Flipkart, Rohit now devotes his time to two things he enjoys: taking images and connecting with animals.
His love for pets and enthusiasm for photography, on the other hand, gave birth to ‘Stills by Rohit.’
Speaking to Petrons, he explained his background and how he got into something as niche as pet photography. He hails from Bhopal and came from a corporate background with no family background in photography. He is an engineer and MBA by education. He worked in companies like CitiBank, Amazon and Flipkart in business roles for 10 years.
“My inclination towards photography happened when I was still doing my corporate job and me and my wife started taking a lot of road trips in Bangalore back in 2015. Because we were travelling, I was carrying a camera to document those moments and from then on photography in general started growing on me. I was just doing it for the fun and the passion and back then there was no pet photography in pictures. We travelled quite a bit nationally and internationally over the next 4-5 years and my photography became better” he says.
They used to visit Cubbon park for walks and that’s when he came across a friend of his who hails from a photography background who said “The best way to learn photography is to have a camera with you wherever you go.”
He took that advice seriously and started taking his camera to Cubbon park and he had a basic camera. He started clicking pictures of birds and trees at Cubbon park and that’s when he discovered the dogs who used to come there for their walks and started clicking them just for the fun of it. “The pet parents used to come and ask me to email the pictures and this went on for like 1-1.5 years and in the process, I got better at it” he pointed out.
The Eureka Moment
In 2017 a lady approached him at Cubbon park and asked him how much he charges for these pictures and a photo shoot and that was his lightbulb moment. Then the idea to monetise came to his mind and he started doing some research on its scope and realised it could be a service that can prove to be valuable in the country a couple of years down the line.
Bangalore as a city plays a very important role as it is a very pro-pet city, unlike other cities. From then he started investing in building a portfolio, and visiting animal shelters as back then he did not have a pet of his own. “My first pet came only in 2020. I started clicking pictures at animal shelters and pictures of my friends with their pets to build my portfolio and then it is a journey after that. Till 2020 I did this along with my job and in 2020 I quit my job to do this full-time” he adds.
Equation with his pet
“We are a family of three, me, my wife and my dog Fuji, she is an Indie and she is black and white and that’s why we named her Fuji after Mount Fuji in Japan. We used to feed dogs at a construction site near our home where we used to feed dogs and back in February and there were 7-8 dogs out of those there was just this one dog who used to leave her food and come running behind us and that was Fuji. One day it poured very heavily in Bangalore and she was all red-eyed and rolled in mud. She was very happy to see us, and that is when we decided to bring her home. Before Fuji, I had another dog named Chime. He was an Indie and I had adopted him from an NGO “Let’s Live together”, he came to my home for fostering and never left” he said.
“Life is just amazing around them and they teach us so much. You get to learn empathy, compassion, and selfless love. There are a lot of misconceptions around Indie dogs which is slowly changing” Rohit adds.
Most memorable shoots
“We all know that pets are not going to stay with us forever and they come with a very short shelf life which as pet parents we are all aware of. Shoots in which we know the end is near are the most memorable ones as there are a lot of emotions involved in such shoots” shares Rohit.
The mantra behind the perfect click
Rohit says it’s necessary to understand animal behaviour before you approach them and consider them as your own.
He points out three important steps “First and can’t stress this enough – Educate yourself in animal behaviour. Understand animal behaviour and invest time in understanding the psychology of the animal as that is your subject”, he says.
“Second, try to create the picture for your family and not for yourself. We need to realise that we are creating these images not for us but for other families. Create images which they end up liking and not what you end up liking.”
“Third, never stop learning. I always think of ways to improve myself and compare myself to myself only. You may be the best today but if you do not reinvent yourself it may not work out for you later. Learning can be anything, it can be in animal behaviour and psychology, improving customer experience, photography etc,”he says.
Inspiration when it comes to pet photography
Rohit admits that pet photography as a genre is years ahead outside India as compared to India, the sole reason being that pets outside India are seen as family members, a change that is slowly happening in India as well.
“Countries like USA, UK and Australia are leading when it comes to pet photography. Pet companionship is very high and rules in those countries are very pet friendly. There is more awareness, more services and more education around it and that is why pet photography is a very lucrative service in those markets. Also, their pet photography is not just limited to dogs, it has cats, it has hamsters, horses birds amongst others. In India, it is 99% dogs. I look up to many pet photographers but what I personally feel is that you can learn something from everyone. I also look up to fashion photographers and wedding photographers for inspiration when it comes to photography. Pet photographers outside India are very open to sharing information.” shares Rohit.
Most exotic pet photoshoot
“The most exotic pet photoshoot that I have done is a turtle but the family wasn’t Ok with making those pictures public so I haven’t shared those pictures yet. Apart from this, I have clicked cats, birds and horses also but very limited as compared to my dog photography portfolio” he adds.
About his team
He started solo but now he has a team that includes assistants and helpers, and he also has make-up artists and stylists. Makeup artists do the makeup of the human whereas the stylists choreograph the whole scene or the frame in terms of what the family should wear. He has social media interns, and customer service interns and they keep coming and going. He mostly takes care of the photography and business development aspects.
The most unique challenge of being a pet photographer
“There are common challenges that any photographer would face like the the family not turning up prepared. The most tricky one is the pet lacking basic obedience as at the end of the day photographer is not a magician, it is not like I do not come across such challenges but I have my ways of taking care of that,” shares Rohit.
What next for ‘Rohit the pet photographer’?
Rohit shares some of the things that he has on his charter.
First is doing something for the customers. He wants to launch a fully-fledged video service for the pet families like how wedding videography is shot like a small movie, something that captures their bond and their background.
The second would be expanding internationally, any industry would grow at a certain pace. He sees this as becoming a very lucrative service in 5 years, right now it is a very early stage. He wants to expand internationally as the service is valued more in those markets than in India today. He wants to take up international assignments.
The third is to do something for the pet businesses. He is planning to launch a stock site for small pet businesses in India so that they can purchase the images from there as nowadays people use Shutterstock which usually lacks images of Indian pets and Indian people.
Celebrity Client tale
He has worked with a couple of celebrities and clicked with them and their pets. To name some, Aindrita Ray, a very popular Kannada actress and her husband Diganth and their dogs, and Malav Rajda from Mumbai who is the director of this very popular show Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah, His client tale also includes Miss Malini, Bollywood journalists and few travel and food influencers.
Tips for aspiring pet photographers in India
Rohit points out two things
“Get into it for the love of it because it is the love for the genre that will keep you going”
“In today’s world photography as a career is glamorised but there is a lot of work that goes behind the scenes and if you have to build a successful business in photography you will have to be good with non-photography aspects as well like marketing, finance and handling customers,” suggests Rohit.
Message for pet lovers
“Our pets live in the moment and we all must learn that from our pets and enjoy every moment with them, spend as much time as you can with them and when you are spending time with them capture those moments as these are the moments that will stay with us forever,” Rohit says.
