C/O Geoff Fitzgerald
Fetching Studios is Hamilton’s first professional dog portrait studio and the hottest new place to photograph your pet
Conveniently located near Gage Park, a great location for a walk with your pooch, Fetching Studios opened its doors this past December as Hamilton’s first professional dog portrait studio. Using fun backdrops, themes and props, Geoff Fitzgerald and Vanessa Marion-Merritt, husband and wife and the founders of the business, aim to capture your dog’s charm and personality.
Fetching Studios started as the couple’s passion project. They had just adopted their Old English Bulldog, Taffy Lee Fubbins, or Taffy for short, and as new dog owners, the idea spurred out of their own interest in taking pictures of their dog and their love for her.
With more than 20 years of photography experience, Fitzgerald is an award winning commercial and editorial photographer and videographer. He photographs and edits the portraits, while Marion-Merritt, who has an extensive tech background and currently works in product management at Shopify, manages the website and handles other backends of the business.
“We started to realize how much a dog in somebody’s life is a family member and how much love people have for their pets,” said Fitzgerald.
He also didn’t want to go to people’s backyards to take photos of their pets; he wanted to create a professional space people normally don’t have access to or can’t recreate. Thus, the idea for a studio ultimately formed to provide dog owners with not only the pictures, but also the experience associated with the process and working in a studio.
They offer 60 to 90-minute sessions with five to six slots available on one weekend per month. Bookings for Fetching Studios can be made on their website where you can also find other merchandise items including tote bags and T-shirts. Clients will have access to a trickle trunk full of various props, dog costumes and accessories for their dog’s shoot as part of the experience.
“The real meat and potatoes for us is the actual experience you have while you’re at the studio . . . It’s the images at the end, but what we’re really selling is a really engaging and a really fun experience the pet and for their owners,” explained Fitzgerald.
At the end of the studio session, customers will receive 15 fully edited images. If they would like, prints are available in other formats as well, such as a larger poster. Fitzgerald and Marion-Merritt are very flexible on the products they can offer.
Besides Taffy, the couple owns a tabby cat named Pepperoni, or Pepper for short, and two hairless rats named Finster and Heiter. Although the studio is focused on dog portraits for now, in the future, they hope to expand their services to other animals and pets as well. Eventually, the couple also hopes to offer more session openings per month as the business continues to grow.
In terms of the reception to this new business, the reaction to the studio’s opening has been unanimously positive.
“I think having these beautiful, high-end photos of our pets is such a great memento to have. So, in general, the response has been extremely positive,” said Fitzgerald.
They have also received attention from other local small businesses as well. One of the businesses they are collaborating with is Grain & Grit Beer Co., a dog-friendly craft brewery just around 10 minutes from McMaster.
On May 29, Grain & Grit Beer Co. will be hosting Summer Dog Days, a dog-focused patio event featuring a variety of local vendors. Fetching Studios will have a booth there and will be offering a five- to 10-minute dog portrait sessions. Visitors will also receive a discount coupon for a regular session at the studio.
“Other local businesses see what we’re offering, see the products we’ve got and want to get involved. They want to connect with other local businesses, support each other and help each other out,” Fitzgerald said.
Moving forward, they are looking forward to integrating and connecting with more businesses, local animal shelters, charities and pet adoption agencies.
“Not only do we want to offer a service, a product, photos and an experience, but we also want to make sure we’re doing our part in helping out whenever we can and helping out in the dog community to try to give back as much as we can as well,” said Fitzgerald.
C/O Lianhao Qu
The Silhouette: Please introduce yourself.
Lianhao Qu: My name is Lianhao. I'm in my second year of [the health sciences program] and specializing in child health. My pronouns are he/him.
What drew you to photography?
I think it was when my dad bought me my first [digital single-lens reflex camera] for Christmas in my second year of high school. I think my dad mainly wanted it for family photos since I'm the designated family photographer. But then I got distracted because we go in nature a lot. I took fewer photos of my parents and my sister and just started shooting nature. This eventually progressed to the city, architecture and it evolved from there.
What subjects inspire you?
I usually lean towards landscape photography. I’m mostly in the city so it usually ends up being a lot of city architecture. I've also tried to get into shooting candid photos of strangers. I just basically go into the city, [with] no plan whatsoever, and take a photo of whatever catches my eye. But really, it's just shooting anything in the streets. Whether it's the buildings around you, the way the light reflects off the water or the water reflecting buildings. Small things like that.
How long have you been interested in photography?
I only really got into it in my later years of high school. I really enjoyed photography as a hobby and sometimes as a side hustle too. There was one summer where I was a freelance photographer. I worked with a union at one point and I was the photographer for this unit who was a part of the parade for the Caribana Festival. I got to go early in the morning and see all the dancers prep and everything. It was a fun experience — definitely out of my comfort zone — but it was a nice change.
Out of your own photos, do you have any favourites?
I think this one's the most pleasant for me to look at. It's just very calm and is a nice background to look at. This was in North Bay at Lake Nipissing right after dinner. I had to leave dinner, actually, run to my hotel to grab my stuff and then I ran back to the lake just to make it in time. I set the tripod up in the water and I looked ridiculous. The hotel owner saw me suddenly running around the street. But the photo is nice.
And then there's this photo. The style is different from what I usually do. This is when quarantine happened. I just searched around for ideas so I could take photos at home. I had the knife already pre-stabbed into the cutting board and one of the apple halves hanging from above. There was a flashlight above too and the lighting is very botched because you have to take this at a very high shutter speed. My mom had to splash water and drop the apple and then I just had to go to take the photo at the right moment.
This is my most viewed photo. As popular as this photo is, I'm not a big fan of it. I think the main reason is this was one of the first photos that kind of blew up. This is when I first got into editing as well. So, to me, the colours here are so saturated and if you look in the far distance, you can see the colours are off.
What is the hardest aspect of photography for you?
Sometimes you go to extreme lengths just to get the right angle for a photo so you look kind of weird. On the first day, it can be frightening when you're in public and you're holding this huge camera and you just stop in the middle of the road. But you have to get rid of that scary thought of how you look in public. I stopped caring what people think of me and I stop in the middle of the road. I don't recommend doing exactly that but the thrill of the photo also makes it fun. Another thing is not forcing yourself to find that perfect angle or photo. Most of my photos I find nice are complete accidents. Usually I'm planning how to get there and how to set up my stuff to take that photo but sometimes it just doesn't turn out the way you want. The photos you take some other day tend to be a lot better and they tend to be complete accidents. Let it come naturally. Don't force it.
Twenty. That's how many weddings I shot in 2018 as a wedding filmmaker, and that's how many couples I've witnessed embark in the romantic tradition of love through ceremonial spectacle. As Aristotle puts it, love that is "composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.”
But what stems from this poetic union of two perfect swipes matches? A spiritual bliss? Unconditional passion? A fulfilled soul? Maybe. But there is a definite partner in crime to romantic love we all need to control: ego.
Not the Freudian ego, but that Kanye ego. You see it in films, you hear it in music and you feel your eyes rolling back when your lab partner urges you to believe that they "meet the perfect criteria" for their Friday-night-fling. Or better yet, the heavenly Friday-night-fling "fits all my checkboxes."
This is only the bark of the evergreen ego, which we can define using author Ryan Holiday's definition as an "unhealthy belief in our own importance” found in his book Ego Is the Enemy. This is synonymous with arrogance, vanity and of course, Kanye.
The ego in love inflates our own level of significance, while at the same time projecting ambitious standards for another to meet. With this principle narcissism, we begin to see the clinging relationship of ego with "romantic love" — which we can describe through the wisdom of Alain de Botton as a lifelong passion of unconditional affection, monogamous sex of the deepest expressions, independent of any logical reasoning and relying only on instinctual emotions and feelings.
Take that in — romantic love lives solely on emotion without logic. To the casual reader, these childish thoughts may seem obvious, but reflecting deeper, we begin to see signs within ourselves and our closest circle. We must control this. Let's take a look throughout your life.
Going back to where this all began, childhood is where we first experienced love. Most can associate child affection with a loving authority. Whether we called them our parent, sibling, relative, or neighbour, we needed them. The attachment theory research of John Bowlby throughout the 1900's, followed by Prof. Sue Johnson's couples therapy research today, brings sound evidence for our dependence on others. When we screamed for food, we got it. When we cried to be held, we got it. When we laughed for playtime, we got it. This is a good thing. Relying on others is the fundamental reason our species has survived millennia. The downside is in its longevity and growth through life.
Yes, we need others in life, and yes, our deepest instinct is to seek attachment, as outlined by Prof. Johnson, but the feedback loop of the Ariana Grande-esque "I want it, I got it" is the root that sprouts the dark ego of romance. Getting things as children paves the way for this underlying principle of romantic love: When we want something, we'll find a way to get it.
Which brings us to the next step of the growing ego in love. Found in puberty, high school, college or university, new experiences with decreased micromanagement and guidance. This is when the ego begins to experiment. Our claustrophobic wants begin to explore outside the supervised home and seeks easier ways to be watered. Whether through becoming captain of the volleyball team, taking the alto sax solo in band and most notably, finding a significant other to seek love and affection from.
This is also the point where ego meets romance. Our idea of love at this time is heavily influenced by the media, family and friends, and I'm willing to bet they all follow the blueprint of romantic love defined above. The fairytale love. The princess and prince charming love.
The budding ego spreads its roots and leaves into new terrain, searching for nourishment through this angelic and socially-acceptable soil called romance. This fair ground is for taking, stemming from it the seedling motto of “doing it because you want it” which only leads to the growth of our selfish plant called ego.
This is when our ego blooms the biggest, taking our primal egotistic need for affection and mixing it with the socially-acceptable irrationality of love. It almost becomes Machiavellian in the way it finds love.
Robert Greene, author of The Laws Of Human Nature, highlights a few archetypes of the folly relationship: the victim types that need saving, the saviour types to save victims, the devilish romantics of seduction, the image of perfection that never comes to fruition and the straight-up "they'll worship my ego indefinitely and unconditionally because of who I am" type.
Nowhere near complete, these types in relationships are ever-present. They may not come to mind right away when we think of romance, but when we look deeply at traditional love stories, the Romeos and Juliettes, the Snow Whites and Prince Charmings, there they are. And when we look beside us, there they are.
Is this a bad thing? Aristotle once said that to fix the warped curvature of wood, one must apply pressure in the opposite direction. And I do believe that regulating our growth should be at the forefront of any visionary. But is this subjective idea of "true love" really a disservice to our growing forest of human interaction?
Yes, I do believe this traditional view of love has well overstayed its visit. Especially with our cultural shift towards individuality and independence. And the first step to grow with the grain is understanding and loosening our ego.
For better or for worse, it's our ego trying to keep up with the Kardashians Joneses in love. But they're not you, and only you know what climate is best to grow love. Not Disney, not the latest country ballad and not the many wedding films found online. There are 7.4B definitions of love, and we need to rid our ego of any unexamined soil.
This means stop assuming that relationships are the norm. Stop associating sex with love. Logical thinking can be just as divine as cupid's arrow. You don't need to love everything about someone to love them. Arguments are arguments, and not signs from a higher power. We can't put full responsibility on another to complete ourselves. And above all, it doesn't make you any less of a person to love someone.
Let go the ego to let love grow.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
