Sheri and Reed at a photo shoot

Sheri Berliner is the founder of Petraits Pet Photography – like portraits, but her subjects are of the furry kind! And although she’s had her share of pampered, spoiled pets, her passion is photographing shelter animals to help them find good homes.

Sheri takes photographs of hundreds of rescued pets each month, and then posts them on Petfinder.com and adoptapet.com with a brief bio of each animal. She also sends out those photo/bios to her email list of close to 5,000 pet lovers.

When Sheri is photographing a shelter animal, she believes it is important to make them look as beautiful as possible. “I put them in a studio setting so they look like objects of art instead of creatures in a cage,” Berliner said. “I try to bring out their true personalty, so that the best possible match can be made.”

.Sheri started volunteering at a shelter over 20 years ago. She often fostered strays and owner surrenders. “I realized that with my photographic and writing skills I could use the pets’ own beauty and stories to help them find homes,” she says. “Better photos and extra publicity can help pets move faster into their forever, allowing rescue groups and shelters to adopt out more animals.”

There are some obstacles that Sheri has to overcome, and she has developed some “tricks of the trade.” She has a repertoire of sounds to get pooches to pay attention – she can bark like a dog, meow, and even do bird trills. And she always has a ready supply of liver snacks for dogs and feather toys for cats. But her biggest challenge still remains -“Trying to get the animals not to pee on, or rip up my backdrop.”

Berlineri shares her home with her own menagerie of rescued animals – five cats, two dogs, a bird, and a rabbit. There is also a “revolving door” of fosters that come and go – a momma cat and litter of kittens, gerbils, mice, dogs, or bunnies. She fosters at least 60 pets each year. “One of the reasons I do what I do, is because I can’t take home any more,” she says with a laugh. “There’s always at least one pet each time I do a photo shoot that I wish I could take home with me …”

You can hear an interview with Sheri here: petraits photography interview

For more information, and to view some of her photographs, visit www.Petraits.com

Results of Photo Session

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