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.
Fourth-year student Abi Oladesu is beautifying clients through her business Desu Beauty
Abi Oladesu has been doing makeup for most of her life. She started having fun with her mother’s makeup from the age of 10 and decided a few years later to challenge herself to increase her skills. She did someone else’s makeup for the first time when she was about 16.
During her second year at McMaster University, the biochemistry student started thinking about taking makeup more seriously. However, it wasn’t until she was quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic that she decided to take the leap and start her business, Desu Beauty on Oct. 30, 2020.
There are three components to Oladesu’s business. As she has received many requests for makeup tutorials and enjoys teaching, she decided that she would post makeup tutorials on Instagram and offer beginner and intermediate lessons.
The second part of her business involves posting her own makeup looks in order to improve her skills and show clients what she can do. Lastly, she does makeup for clients’ weddings, photoshoots, proms, graduations and other events.
View this post on Instagram
It is important to Oladesu that when she does clients’ makeup, she isn’t turning them into a different person but highlighting the best parts of them. This goal stems in part from her own experience with makeup. When Oladesu was a preteen and early teenager, she used makeup as a way of hiding her face. Now she uses makeup to accentuate her features and seeks to do the same for her clients.
“Obviously nobody wants that for themselves, but I don't think there's anything necessarily bad about [being self-conscious] in the sense that we all feel self-conscious once in a while. We're in a society where the beauty standards are very high and they change all the time, but it's important to remember . . . you're the one that at the end of the day determines your worth to other people,” said Oladesu.
"We're in a society where the beauty standards are very high and they change all the time, but it's important to remember . . . you're the one that at the end of the day determines your worth to other people," said Oladesu.
This mission is embedded in the name of Oladesu’s business. While she originally called it Desu Beauty as a reference to the last four letters of her last name, she realized upon reflection that it had a deeper meaning for her.
“I'm a very large fan of anime and so desu . . . basically means “to be” . . . I am [also] Christian [and] in the Bible, it's like “we are beautifully and wonderfully made” . . . So to be that beautifully and wonderfully creative person, you have to love yourself in every aspect, whether that's with wearing your natural face out and being super proud of it or getting the skills to do your makeup really well so that every time you look in the mirror . . . you’re like, “wow, I feel beautiful, I know I'm beautiful.” . . . I want you to be the best version of yourself or at least to look at yourself and be like "wow, I feel like that beautifully and wonderfully made person,"” explained Oladesu.
Since she started, Oladesu has received positive reception and a lot of support from family and friends. Unfortunately, the ongoing pandemic has decreased the number of events for which people would get their makeup done. At the same time, Oladesu credits the pandemic with giving her the time to start her business.
View this post on Instagram
Oladesu also sees online classes as a blessing for her since she started her business. Instead of spending all day on campus and then doing makeup appointments, she can better make her own schedule by doing makeup during the day and watching recorded lectures afterwards. Managing the business alongside her demanding degree and other commitments has also encouraged her to better prioritize her time.
Oladesu looks forward to continuing to grow her following and reach more people through her business. As she will be graduating soon, she is considering how she might integrate her love of makeup into her career.
“I'm definitely a cautious person so . . . right now, I definitely am going to finish my biochemistry degree and I'm going to see if I could get a job with that. But working with makeup has gotten me interested in cosmetics in general so [maybe] I can mix my biochemistry major with cosmetics and then possibly go into formulation or something along those lines,” said Oladesu.
"I definitely am going to finish my biochemistry degree and I'm going to see if I could get a job with that. But working with makeup has gotten me interested in cosmetics in general."
To other students with a skill they are considering turning into a business, Oladesu says to just start. She recalls that she felt the need to have high-quality foundations in every colour before she began her business. However, since she started, all her clients have used colours that she had already had.
“There's nothing wrong with humble beginnings. You don't have to have everything, you don't have to have the best of everything," Oladesu said. "It's better to just start because honestly, I feel like people appreciate watching you grow and watching you improve.”
