Sometimes, it’s our grandparents who make the most impact on personalities, our growth, our development.
Courtney Bryson spent childhood weekends on her grandparents’ farm and developed a love for animals and photography because of her gramma and grampa.
Today, she is the mastermind behind CM Bryson Photography in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Rescue Ranch, a nonprofit dedicated to rescuing special needs Boston terriers.
She’s also one of the founding members of One Last Network and a graduate of our pet loss grief certification program in which she learned how to be a better support for her clients who come to her for end of life pet photography.
Courtney has endured more than her fair share of loss since right before the pandemic, including her beloved horse Ginger and both of those amazing grandparents who helped her become who she is.
In this episode, Courtney and I talk about that grief journey and how it has made her a better photographer, allowing her to find the perfect in the imperfect.
What to listen for:
- How Courtney became a pet and equine photographer
- The special relationship she had with Ginger
- Why getting her own portraits with Ginger was so important
- Courtney’s experience with loss and grief
- And how that all changed her approach to end of life pet photography
Connect with Courtney
Angela Schneider
Sometimes, it’s our grandparents — like my gramma Mary Agnes — who make the most impact on personalities, our growth, our development.
Courtney Bryson spent childhood weekends on her grandparents’ farm and developed a love for animals and photography because of her gramma and grampa.
Today, she is the mastermind behind CM Bryson Photography in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Rescue Ranch, a nonprofit dedicated to rescuing special needs Boston terriers.
She’s also one of the founding members of One Last Network and a graduate of our pet loss grief certification program in which she learned how to be a better support for her clients who come to her for end of life pet photography.
Courtney has endured more than her fair share of loss since right before the pandemic, including her beloved horse Ginger and both of those amazing grandparents who helped her become who she is.
In this episode, Courtney and I talk about that grief journey and how it has made her a better photographer, allowing her to see with different eyes.
Angela
Good. Morning, Courtney, how are you today?
Courtney Bryson
Good. How are you?
Angela
I am well. Why don’t we get started by having you tell us a little about yourself and how a prom dress started your journey into pet photography?
Courtney
Yeah, so I’m Courtney, I live outside of Atlanta, Georgia. And I have been photographing pets since probably 2010. But I actually started my business in 2018. So I used to sell prom dresses and work for a company that we created a direct mail prom magazine that went all over the US, we had about a half a million distribution, where we photograph dresses and then sold them to teenagers, or actually sold them to stores to sell them to teenagers. And it was kind of in that same process that I also started fostering dogs, and put together that photographing dresses, in order to make the dress seem desirable, would be very similar to photographing my foster dog, to make them seem really desirable. It was also about the same time that Facebook was really taking off. Social media completely changed the dog rescue game. All of a sudden, you know, we weren’t just having to take dogs to PetSmart every Saturday to try and find people that might be interested in adopting. We could show dogs to people all over the country to find their homes. So I don’t know if you can hear this squeaky toy going on behind me.
Angela
It’s good background noise. Absolutely.
Courtney
Like not anywhere else in the house, just directly behind my chair.
Angela
In the pet photography industry, we often hear that better pictures of animals help get them adopted quicker. But I don’t know that anybody has any actual hard data around that. But you you have seen the proof, right?
Courtney
Yeah, so we kind of lived that. So I have worked both in small breed specific rescues. And in larger humane societies, I was the director for my county’s Humane Society for several years. And seeing photos not only helped dogs get adopted, but also help these organizations raise money and tell the stories of the animals that they are photographing in rescuing has been incredibly valuable. We can even tell like, in the fall when I get super busy with clients, and I’m not at the shelter every week photographing dogs, we see adoption numbers come down. You know, I think just because they aren’t seeing them. And like, you know, we have a great staff there that really tried for a cellphone photo of a cat cowering in its litter box in the back of the cage. Just doesn’t seem like oh, that’s the cat I want to bring in my house. So and the same is true for dogs.
Angela
And so you mentioned that you started a rescue. It’s called the Ranch Rescue or the Rescue Ranch. Correct?
Courtney
Correct.
Angela
How did that end up happening?
Courtney
So I was already fostering for a Boston Terrier rescue at that time, and we worked a hoarding case. Here in Georgia, we get really hot in the summer and a lot of our animal controls don’t have central heat and air. So we worked a hoarding case, we ended up losing half of those dogs, two heatstroke and parvo before we could get there. It took six days to arrange enough rescues to come in and get that many dogs into foster homes. So after that, we decided we wanted to do something different, so we bought property outside of the city, we built a facility on our property to house dogs that has air conditioning. And that’s kind of how we got started in Boston terriers. And from there it’s also kind of now shifted. We primarily work with only special needs Boston Terriers and French Bulldogs. So we have paralyzed dogs and dogs that are blind or dogs that need wheelchairs or dogs that have congenital issues. The one that was squeaking the toy is Carolina. She was born with cleft lip and palate and we tube fed her for the first several months of her life.
Angela
What is it about Boston terriers for you?
Courtney
They are really kind of clown dogs. And the fun thing about a Boston is that they want to be whatever the person is doing. So, like, if you are someone that wants to sit on the couch and watch TV all day, they want to sit on the couch and watch TV all day. And if you want to have them play fetch for hours, they want to play fetch for hours. You know, they, they don’t really have, like a set personality that this dog needs this kind of person. They are a dog that just needs a person and they want to do what you want to.
Angela
And so there’s a whole different level to your pet photography, passion, then, helping dogs get rescued, correct?
Courtney
Yes.
Angela
There’s a certain lady named Ginger in your past that we want to talk about.
Courtney
Yeah, so Ginger was my horse. And my grandfather got her for me when I was four years old. So she was my first actual pet. I was like, so many little girls, I was just horse obsessed. But not everyone has a Papa that’s like, oh, let’s get you a horse.
Angela
I did not have that Papa.
Courtney
Yeah. So I got ginger. When I was four, she was eight months old. And we really grew up together. I don’t know that now, knowing horses that I would recommend that you purchase for your child, a horse that’s never been ridden and you know nothing about. But for us, it really worked out. So we grew up together. Like I rode every summer, she lived on my grandparents farm in North Carolina, which was like a two hour drive from my house. Most of my life, my big goal as a kid was to be able to eventually buy a house where Ginger would live with me.
So she moved here to the ranch two years before she ended up passing. So she was … she was 31 when she passed, which is a nice, long life for a horse. It’s the longest relationship of my life. You know …
Angela
I had no idea that horses could live that long. And when I found out I was like, wow, it, it enlightened me to the relationship that people have with their horses a little bit. Because having a creature around you for 31 years, that’s a long time and you develop a really deep relationship, right?
Courtney
Yeah, and so much of my life was defined around the things that we did together. You know, different trail rides. And so she went through all of those things, like all the hard teenage stuff. You know, going through college getting my first job, I first bought a house in town, and I was still making that drive to visit her as much as I could. And then when I got to bring her home was such an emotional day because it was something that I had promised her since I was a little girl. When we bought the property that we have now that we had enough space that we could have a pasture for her and bring her here was incredible. I feel like it’s one of the most defining moments, like I don’t know many other promises that I made as a kid that I got to see kind of come to fruition 20 years later.
Angela
Wow. And what a sense of accomplishment too for you to be able to go I was able to do this I bought my house I have my acreage and now I have my horse with me.
Courtney
Yeah. Yeah, so with Ginger and what that kind of how that defined photography. For me. I was already a professional dog photographer, by time I brought her here. Like I knew how important these photos are to people. I had had my own dogs, and I had lost some of my own dogs in this process. And it really wasn’t … I didn’t have photos of me with them. And my grandmother always pushed that we should … she was kind of our family’s documentarian. So she housed all the photo albums like I think I have a half dozen baby books, because she photographed everything and printed all of those photos and put them in photo albums and printed them out to go out on the walls.
And once I brought Ginger here — because she left my grandparents farm to move here with me — my grandmother really wanted a photo of me with Ginger here. She had this one particular piece of wall art. And it was one of those that has like three different images in it. And so there was a photo of me in my red cowboy duster at four years old, with Ginger. Right when we picked her up. And then there was a photo of me as a senior in high school, on their farm with ginger, and then there was a blank spot. And she wanted to put a photo of me with Ginger here.
And I kind of went through like all those insecurities that we go through, like, I need to lose 30 pounds so that I look more like I did then. I need to have the right pose, I need to … all of these excuses that I had for not doing it and putting it off. And then my grandmother had a fall and broke a rib and very unexpectedly while healing in the hospital passed away.
And it was devastating that I didn’t fulfill that promise that I had told her I was going to do. So I kind of made the commitment then, and I booked a session and still kind of pushing it off, I booked it for like eight months in the future. So that, you know, I could do all of those things that I’d said I needed to do. And then that was at the very end of 2019. And then everything fell apart and 2020 and March happened. And so, you know, my session still wasn’t until September of 2020. And we felt like things would be over but that meant when it came time for session time, you know, I hadn’t had a haircut in almost a year. And I had not lost the 30 pounds I told myself I was going to lose, I had put on 20 pounds with COVID. Like everyone else.
Angela
Like everyone else.
Courtney
And I just … I decided it didn’t matter, that I needed to do those photos in memory of my grandmother. And so I had a photographer friend here, that’s an equine photographer locally. And we did the session and Ginger was in great health. You know she was she had just turned 31, the same month that we had our session. She had been seen by the vet pretty regularly, she’d had one infected tooth like in her whole life. And then in November of 2020, she was diagnosed with equine Cushing’s disease and started medication for that. And on December 6, she passed. And I had no idea that it was going to be so fast. Like I know horses that have been on Cushing’s medications for years and are continuing to do great, and it just wasn’t in the cards for us. And it didn’t matter what I did.
And when I got my image box from the photographer, after I placed that order, I set that box on a shelf in my office. And I couldn’t open it for six months.
And now those photos, you know, we’re coming up on a year and a half. And those photos can finally … I can have them, I can have them sitting out and they’re on the bookshelf in my living room. And it’s one of those really beautiful image boxes that has the photo on the front. So it’s like a, like a photo frame that I can change those out. And I printed a little 4×6 and added it to the frame that my grandmother had. And that’s in the guest room where they stayed when they came to the farm. So it’s been … now having those photos of that relationship and kind of fulfilling that, that part of the promise has made what I do so much more important.
Angela
Ginger also symbolized a deep connection to your parents, grandparents, didn’t she?
Courtney
Yeah, you know, my granddad was the one that got her for me. She lived on their farm most of her life. My … I lost my grandparents within a year of each other. And my granddad’s biggest wish was always to die on the farm where he grew up, which is where their farm was in North Carolina. And his health got to a point that that wasn’t a possibility. So we actually did hospice for him here at my house. And I told him … so he was in the guest room, where I had that photo that I had taken from my grandmother’s house. And I told him, you know, I can’t … I can’t give you the farm. But I hope my farm is close enough.
Angela
And he could see Ginger from his window.
Courtney
From the window. Yeah.
Angela
And that helped him?
Courtney
I think so. So I think he felt like it was similar to home for him.
Angela
Did those d those relationships with your grandparents define you more than anything? Because I know, you know, my, my mom died in January. And the most important things I found in her house where the photos too. I just recently returned from her memorial service. And among the vast collection is a picture of me as a baby with my grandmother holding me. And when I saw it, I broke down. Because she formed my personality, along with my dad in a lot of ways ways … she formed my personality, in more ways than any of my parents than either of my parents did. Because she took no shit. And she did things balls out, and you know what I mean?
Courtney
Yeah.
Angela
So I look at her as having more impact on my childhood than almost anyone. Were your grandparents the same way?
Courtney
They were. My parents were very young when they had me, and I was the first grandchild for my grandparents. And so on Friday nights, when my grandmother would get off of work, she would pick me and then eventually my siblings up and we spent every weekend at their house. Up until the point I was a teenager. So, you know, he’s the same, my granddad is the same one that thought that it would be funny to put an infant pig in my bed. To which I’ve been, you know, I was ecstatic, I was not afraid that, you know, I think he was thinking he would scare me. And so I raised Wilbur, until he was 1000 pound hog on the farm. He helped me, we hatched turkeys one time. The mama turkey had been hit. She was a wild turkey. And so I have photos of little baby wild turkeys following me on the porch and into the house because my grandmother was always photographing everything, even though I’m sure she was not super excited that we were bringing turkeys into her house.
So I do think like, not only are most of my favorite memories, or memories that I had with them, most of the memories that I have … animals and kind of fostering that love that I have for them is from them.
Angela
Yeah, it sounds to me like you were destined to work with animals and cameras.
Courtney
Yeah.
So as a kid, I knew I wanted to work with animals. But I, you know, when you think when you’re seven, eight years old, I want to work with animals. It’s like, Oh, I must be a vet. Because that’s the only animal job that I could really think of existing. And I’m so glad now that I’m not a vet, I don’t think that was my calling. It just took a long time to kind of figure out this was it.
Angela
You had three tremendous losses in the span of a few years. How are you healing? And how does pet photography help you heal?
Courtney
So I’m still really working on it. So I lost my horse, both of my grandparents had a cousin that committed suicide that had been raised with me as a sister. And my uncle died dramatically. All within the last couple of years. And I have always kind of been a person that doesn’t cry easily, puts everything aside, focuses on the work almost to my detriment. And I think, really over the last probably two years I have allowed myself to feel through my photography. To photograph my own dogs doing things that they love to do, to pour that into photographing my clients with the dogs and the relationships that they hold so close. And to see those feelings in photos I think has made it feel safe for me to feel them.
Angela
When you, as we all do, book a client who is facing you know that time and in her pets’ lives, or her pet’s life, what steps do you take to ensure that everything goes well?
Courtney
Yeah.
So I think one of the most important pieces is really honing in on those things that they love the most about their dogs. I photographed a dog just a couple of months ago, whose owner contacted me knowing that she didn’t have a lot of time still left. And I really wanted to know, like, what are what things are you going to really miss that you might not think about every day, and for her it was … her dog had a white spot on the back of one ear. And that was kind of really the only spot of color that she had, everything else was just, she was just brown and had this little one white spot. And I had the same thing that I had gone through when I lost Ginger, like one of the things that I really missed, that you didn’t think about was that she had this kind of white spot on … just right behind her ear. And that was always like the spot that was her favorite to scratch.
Courtney
That’s her love button.
Courtney
Yeah.
So like, I want to know those things. Or does your dog really love to play fetch, and maybe they don’t play fetch like they used to, as they, as they get older. But can we set up our session so that we can capture some of that love that they have for these activities that you do together? And what are ways too that you can be in the images with the animals that you love. You know, it doesn’t really matter what you look like. And when you look back at these pictures, in six months, even, you’re going to realize that I didn’t really need to lose that 20 pounds, it didn’t really make a difference. That’s not what I see anymore. What you start to see are really this, this relationship that you share. And even if you’re not ready to look at the images, when they first come back to you, that’s OK too. This is about creating this healing for you. And these memories for you when you’re ready for them.
Angela
Has your grief made you a better pet photographer?
Courtney
Absolutely.
Angela
How so?
Courtney
I think because it has really allowed me to feel things deeper that my clients are also going through. And to see things differently through the camera. You know, images that I might have overlooked from a technical standpoint. Sometimes when you flip through a session and you look at different images, and you’re going through and kind of culling them like, OK, that’s an eye blink, we’re going to delete that one. Oh, I’m not totally in focus, we’re going to skip that one. And you’ll flip through and you’ll find an image. And there’s something about that moment that you see. And maybe there’s a little bit of motion blur, or maybe you’ve chopped off a foot in the framing. But I think after going through the grief that I’m still working my way through now I save that image because I feel that moment. And I don’t know that I would have done that five years ago.
Angela
As a young sports journalist and hockey photographer, my editor would tear me a new one if somebody’s foot was cut off at the ankle, or if the ball wasn’t close enough to the foot in soccer or you know, stuff like that. Those ideas drove a lot of my photography in the in the beginning to to be very true or, you know, keep those rules in my mind. But I think you’re absolutely right. When your client, who is showing that perfect imperfect moment with their pet isn’t going to care that their foot is cut off.
Courtney
Yeah, well, I think like when I started photography, it was I was coming from a background of working where we were photographing, like, like I said, prom dresses. So the idea was this kind of really what you wanted was one perfect image and so every hair needs to be in place and there couldn’t be any wrinkles in the fabric and the light had to be exactly right and you know we placed all of these props like down to the millimeter where they were supposed to be. And I approached dog photography at first very much the same way and I think what I’ve really learned from this is that we’re not really taking pictures, we are trying to box up in an image this emotion that we’re feeling and that’s really what it’s about. You know, maybe if you were photographing something to go on a dog food package, everything should be perfect. But that’s not real life.
Angela
I think that’s a good end point. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Courtney
No, I think this was really good for me too.
Angela
Really?
Courtney
Yeah, to talk about.
Angela
It IS good to talk about our loss and our pain and our grief.
As my teacher David Kessler says grief must be witnessed.
We must be given a judgment free space to share our stories, our memories of our loved ones … be they grandparents, parents or pets.
Having others hear our stories, hear our pain … to be heard … helps us heal.
Next week, I turn the mic over to Courtney who interviews Paula Nowak of Canine Country Academy, based in Lawrenceville, Georgia. They discuss simple modifications on common tricks and behaviors to help our senior dogs live out their best lives.
