Kickstarter

Why 365 Bullies? 

Simply put, Bullies are the reason I am still a photographer. I moved to Chicago in early 2011 to chase down my dream of being a professional photographer. After spending several months here with no success, I was ready to pack up and go back home to Michigan.Then I got a job walking Bulldogs around the city and everything changed. 

The Bullies I spent my days with reignited my love of photography and enabled me to once again make images that moved me and made me smile. These Bullies inspired me to launch See Spot Smile Pet Photography and they have given me my success as a photographer. 

I also started doing work with a Bulldog rescue, Chicago English Bulldog Rescue (CEBR), as most of my dog walking clients were adopted from that rescue and the unique stories and personalities of these amazing dogs inspire me every day.

And so, 365 Bullies is how I'm saying thank you to the Bullies. I'm spending 2012 photographing 365 Bullies in the Chicago area and at the end of the project, all of the photos will be compiled into a book which will be for sale with all of the proceeds going to benefit CEBR. I will also be giving a large portion of the photo sitting fees to CEBR to reach my photo sitting donation goal of $3,650. 

Why the Kickstarter campaign?

The short answer? Because in order to donate money, you have to have money. 

The long answer? My Kickstarter campaign isn't about making bank, it's about having resoucres available to me in order to make this project as amazing as possible, in order to donate as much money to CEBR as possible.

In order to complete this project, my professional work at See Spot Smile is being put on the back burner so that I can put all of my energy into 365 Bullies. That being said, I'm in need of resources to help me pay for the costs of this project. Yes, I'm charging $30 per dog but a large portion of that is going to CEBR as the donation goal and the rest will pay for some of the costs of the project. 

What are the costs of the project, you ask? Well, there aren't too many places that are willing to play host to a mass amount of Bulldogs for a photo shoot, so there's the cost of renting a facility for all of the photo shoots throughout the year, as well as the cost of any special permits I will need in order to host photo shoots outside in the warmer months. Then there's the assortment of electronic things that I will need (numerous camera batteries, tons of memory cards and a couple of external hard drives to protect all of the images I take during the duration of the project). Lastly and least expensively, you can't photograph dogs without tons of yummy, stinky and healthy premium dog treats!

How does this Kickstarter thing work?

Well first and foremost, Kickstarter is all or nothing. If I don't bring in all of the money I set out to raise, every contributor will be refunded their contribution. That's not to say that I won't do whatever I have to in order to make this project happen, but without the extra resources, the project will be much harder to make awesome. 

So if you're sold and you want to help me reach my project goal and make this project as great as possible, donate and you will be rewarded :-)