Pawtraits For A Purpose
- Jun 19
- 2 min read
A project aimed at capturing professional dog portraits with the goal of raising donations for animal shelters and rescue organizations
Jackie and I (Morgan) are two dog enthusiasts looking to offer professional dog portraits in exchange for donations that support local animal shelters and rescue organizations throughout Monmouth County, New Jersey. Yesterday was our first attempt at getting the ball rolling on a project that have been brainstorming about for some time now.
As we walked up to Belmar's dog beach, we passed a lady leaving with her pup. We asked what the crowd was like and were told everybody had gone home already... wind out of our sails a bit we decided to give it a look for ourselves anyway. We were excited to see there were still TWO dogs on the beach –and two potential candidates for what would be our first portraits. We began setting up our lighting and were ecstatic to see ANOTHER dog entering the beach (an energetic beagle named Otis)! While the owner of the two dogs initially spotted politely declined we still had hope. We were hoping the beagle would be a good omen, as Jackie is obsessed with her own beagle, Lola, and beagles have been getting a lot of attention in the news recently with the end of Ridgeland Beagle Animal Testing, so many of them are filling up shelters nearby. Thankfully, Otis's parents, Will and Katie, were super open to our idea, and helped us snag some awesome shots as our first pup!!!
While photographing Otis, two more dogs joined the beach and once we concluded our portraits with Otis we met Ryan and photographed her two energetic golden retrievers, Rookie & Remy afterwards. At this point it felt like our luck had completely turned around! After our first trial photo session, we’re even more excited to get started. Every dog has a unique personality worth capturing, and every shelter dog deserves a brighter future.
Thank you for following along from the beginning—we can’t wait to meet your pups and support local rescues together. ❤️ Hope to catch y’all at the dog beach soon!!
Follow us at @Pawtraits4Apurpose on instagram!
