I won a voucher to this photographer and attended the shoot. I specifically wanted at least one (if not more) nice portraits of my dog and was willing to pay the price for the prints on top of the voucher value. However in the end I decided not to follow through with the purchase process for the reasons noted below.

First of all, there were some pros:
- The support staff are excellent, very patient and diligent making/following up appointments (and with many travel and business commitments it was quite difficult for me to lock down times for appointments, so I appreciate that even more). Politeness and service from the staff was great.
- The setting is lovely, and if you want the garden/country look its certainly a unique place to have shots done
- The portfolio I saw had some excellent shots, the quality of the work itself seems to be of a high standard and the canvas prints/framing are also high quality
- I like that family portraits can include pets, that's a big plus in my book

Neither pros nor cons but things to note:
- This business is 'by referral only' and has a convoluted process of gift cards and paperwork to make an appointment. It seemed a little over the top and a bit of a strange way to process clients, but that's just the way they do things.
- There is no digital anything with these guys. There is no online previews of your photos, and you can't purchase the files (though to be fair they did mention they might do that in the future... for a fee of course). That doesn't bother some people, personally I like to have digital copies or at least be able to browse thumbnails of the photos ahead of a 'purchasing' appointment.
- I wouldn't call their style particularly modern, but it really depends on your tastes and the look you're going for

The cons:
- A pet photographer that openly tells me he doesn't like dogs?? Really not my cup of tea and not a great way to start a shoot.
- I wasn't 'allowed' to use treats to get my dog to focus and there was little interaction with the dog from the photographer, either of which I think would have made the the whole thing far more pleasant for me and my dog.
- Despite an unnecessarily lengthy consultation beforehand, the shoot itself still felt quite impersonal, like they're just churning out standard shots with different people/dogs in them.
- EGO. I deal with creative people in my work every day (including many photographers), but wow the ego and attitude going on here actually made me very uncomfortable. I get it, you have a successful business. You're booked out all the time. You're making hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of that has anything to do with my dog being photographed and frankly it just makes me feel like you're overcharging. It really rubbed me the wrong way and made the whole shoot quite unpleasant.
- Speaking of overcharging: incredibly overpriced prints. I'm willing to pay for quality work but in this day and age of digital photography, hundreds of dollars per (unframed, unmounted) print is just not on.

I was excited to have these portraits done, but I came away feeling like there was no engagement with me or my dog which was very disappointing. I don't feel like my dog's personality was captured or that my requests for simple shots were heard. I could see there were many lovely portraits there in the studio, so there is obviously many happy customers of this business, but I was not one of them.

If you want nice family portraits in a lovely setting and you live close to Blacktown, these guys are what you're looking for (...if you can get around the referral requirement for an appointment and you can afford the prints).

If you want someone who genuinely enjoys working with animals and wants to bring out the best in your pet for their portraits, I think there are far better, more reasonably priced pet photographers out there.