About Unleashed Education

About Us

Hi! We're your pet photography teachers - Charlotte Reeves and Craig Turner-Bullock.

If you know who we are already, you might have recognised us in the images above. We've been firm friends since 2016 when we met for the first time in Spain at a dog photography workshop. You could say, we clicked straight away!

As well as our obvious obsession with dogs and photography, we also share a love of the outdoors, cuddling puppies, good food, annoying our respective husbands by jet-setting off around the world at the slightest opportunity and indulging in that special brand of UK / Australian / New Zealand humour. Oh, and we also share a huge DISlike of tomatoes.

We've hung out all over the world together, from Costa Rica to France, Tasmania to Spain. And of course visited each other in our respective home bases in Australia and New Zealand to eat amazing food, explore wild places and do all things photography related.

You can find out more about us by clicking through to our pages below, but read on to discover how (and why) we started Unleashed Education.

Our Foundation Story

With * years of dog photography experience between us (gosh that makes us sound old!) we also share a love of teaching. Charlotte started teaching in 2014 with the release of her first e-book, and Craig started sharing his extensive knowledge through workshops and mentoring in 2015.

After location scouting (our fave!) and teaching together at a couple of Barka workshops, in January 2020 (yep, snuck it in just before the world went crazy) we held our first workshop - Style Lab Workshop - in Tasmania, Australia. It was a huge success and we immediately starting scheming to run more. Unfortunately our plans were quickly curtailed but they've been simmering away on the back burner ever since.

Prior to 2021, our online teaching endeavours had prompted us both to start our own pet photography education websites - Charlotte's Learn Pet Photography and Craig's Furtography Academy. Both were filled with premium courses, videos, e-books and educational resources for pet photographers - all focused on teaching the craft of pet photography - shooting and editing.

After deciding to teach more workshops together in the future, it also seemed like a natural progression to combine our online teaching endeavours too, so in April 2021 we launched our new combined education website - Unleashed Education!

  We recognise there is great value in community support.

On a worldwide scale, photographers in our little niche industry are few and far between, often feeling isolated. Our aim is to bring together pet photographers from all over the world, offering not just education but friendship and connection with other like-minded souls. This is why we started our membership and was also the driving force behind everything we do - ranging from workshops to group challenges, monthly live calls to our active Facebook community. We can't wait for you to join us!

  We believe in giving our students honest, constructive feedback.

We are both big believers in honest, kind and constructive feedback. This gives photographers the best chance to improve and refine their craft. Whether it's in-person at a workshop or event, or online via group or individual training, you can rely on us to be completely upfront and direct and what works and what doesn't work, always with plenty of advice on how to fix any issues and improve in the future.

  We strive to cater to all learning styles.

People absorb information in different ways. Some people learn best by reading, others by watching, and others by listening. To cater for different learning styles, we always present our education in as many different ways as we can. In your Unleashed Education courses you can choose to watch a video, read a transcript, receive bite-sized chunks of information by email, or even listen to podcast-style audio at a time that suits you. By presenting the education in many different forms, we feel this gives you the best chance of firmly tucking it away in your brain for both instant use and future reference!

  We agree that the dog's wellbeing always comes first.

As pet photographers, we have a duty not only to our human clients, but also to the animal subjects we work with, to always ensure that during photo sessions they feel happy, not stressed and safe. In the heat of the moment it can be easy to get carried away - asking the dog to stand and stay for longer than is comfortable, or simply shooting for long past their endurance. We feel it's important to teach our methods with our subject's comfort and wellbeing as a priority. We believe in positive reinforcement dog training, and this comes through in all our education.

  We believe versatility makes a good pet photographer.

Especially for those who are in business and shooting for clients, the ability to adapt, improvise and work with all kinds of dog personalities in all sorts of locations and light, is incredibly important. Even if you're just photographing your own dog, or working in pet rescue, your ability to create variety in your work will always come in handy. Keeping social media content fresh and keeping eyes on those adoptable pets is all down to creating solid work that doesn't all look the same. Far from being a one trick pony, with the skills you learn through Unleashed Education, you'll be able to create interesting, dynamic work - and handle any situation like a pro - even if you aren't one!

  We are perfectionists.

While this particular character trait can sometimes make projects drag out a little longer, it also means that you can rest assured that every learning material we produce has been carefully planned, meticulously crafted and thoroughly refined before it's released. That's not to say we never make mistakes, but we certainly never whack things together without carefully considering all angles. As a result, we feel everything we do is gold standard - and checked twice - because there's two perfectionists on the case!