- In this special episode, we turn our lens to local stories that celebrate the craft of photography.

In this first segment, Adam Goldberg understands that perfect pet posts and capturing individual personalities are essential for driving adoptions.

His passion for animal welfare is the driving force behind the work in his own company.

(upbeat music) - So I got started in pet photography because I worked in an animal shelter, worked there for two years, and it was there where I actually learned how to work with animals and take photos.

I was doing adoption photos at the Humane Society here in Tampa and just doing it for fun on the weekends.

And they asked me a few months in, "Hey, we love your pictures.

We think the community would love them too.

Will you host a photo shoot fundraising event for us?"

And at that point, this was two years ago, I had no idea how to do that, how to get people to sign up, the marketing behind it.

It went very well, sold out.

Hosted another one, that one sold out.

Hosted another one, that sold out.

Then I started reaching out to other animal shelters in Florida.

Those sold out.

So it took off because they just had a simple request.

And that simple request turned into a career for me.

And since that first event, it was in July of 2016, I've hosted about 200 pet photo shoot fundraisers across the country.

And we just surpassed about $71,000 in donations.

The goal of each photograph is to bring out the pet's personality.

Whenever I show someone their pet's photo, they're like, "Oh my God, that's him."

"You captured Fluffy right there."

To get a good picture at a photo session, it's important to have a calm demeanor.

The dog will feed off energy of me, of their owner.

Then I make a fool outta myself, noises, squeaks, squeals.

(Adam squeals) I bark sometimes.

And the other thing is treats.

And I use a lot of peanut butter too.

(Adam squeals) It's important for shelter animals to have great photos because social media nowadays is so prominent.

And without that, without a good quality picture, they're just gonna get ignored.

Suncoast Animal League gets a lot of interesting animals that have been through turmoil or trouble.

And I was doing a pet photo shoot fundraiser for them.

And one of the foster parents had Clover and asked if she could bring her in for a photo shoot just to document her progress.

- Clover was actually caught in a fire.

Her family was in a shed, and the mom, Daisy, pulled the puppies, some of the puppies out, and actually she was found laying on top of some of the puppies, protecting them.

A few of the puppies had little marks on them, but Clover kind of got the brunt of it where it looked like maybe one of the panels fell on top of her and burned her pretty badly.

When she came to us, her immune system was so compromised that not only was she healing the wounds on the outside from the burns, but she had some immune system issues on the inside that we had to work through as well.

So she's a little fighter.

(light music) Adam is an amazing photographer.

He does a lot of good things for the rescues in the area.

Suncoast Animal League shared that fundraiser and photos of Clover on their Facebook page.

And through that exposure, Madeira Beach happened to be following our page.

- Our secretary, Trish Eaton, saw posts about Clover being up for adoption at Suncoast Animal League.

And Clover is great.

She came by, we liked her story and she's just a real sweetheart.

So we chose her and it's been great.

- With Clover being adopted by the fire department, I was so proud.

And it was just amazing to see her walk down in the commission meeting with her badge on and to give kisses to her new family and just know what kind of life she's gonna have and the lives she's gonna touch.

You know, the kids that see her that have scars and you know, see what a fighter she is and just how strong she is.

And you know, the help that she's giving to the firefighters.

'cause they go out and they see some pretty bad stuff, you know, on a daily basis and to come home to her.

And she's always happy and wagging her tail and happy to see them.

- It makes the station feel more like a home.

The job can be stressful and it's real nice to be able to come back to the station and know Clover will be here.

- I was able to do a photo shoot with her again as a follow-up and the firefighters were there.

It was amazing.

We did some photos in front of the truck and it was awesome.

Clover is the best dog for what she's doing now.

- We plan to involve her in like public education and teach-ins and stuff like that and like fire safety programs that we do with the schools.

And so she will have a job.

Stop, drop and over.

- [Speaker] Good girl, Clover!

- I have a project called the Shelter Pet Cutout Project.

And the idea behind that is to put these life-size pet cutouts at community businesses.

And they wear a tag that says, "This dog represents the hundreds of shelter animals available for adoption on a daily basis."

And the reason for that is I wanted to put my photography out there, but also put it in places where people don't expect it.

Not everyone's going to the shelter, not everyone's going to the shelter website.

For this first round of cutouts, we did six dogs and they've all been adopted.

So I started the Pit Bull Picture Project, which uses my style and photography, which is the goofy, the silly, the funny side, and portrays pit bulls in a positive light to inspire more pet adoptions.

So the idea of the project is to show the goofy and lovable side, dispel some of the myths.

And it actually got national attention.

It was in Huff Post and People Magazine.

Through the projects that I'm working on, getting extra attention to pit bulls or shelter animals, I'm doing my job.

(light piano music) I adopted my dog, Rigby, when I worked at the animal shelter and it was the best day of my life when I rescued him and brought him home.

He was four months old at the time.

The funny thing is I never had a dog growing up, so I didn't really know how to care for a dog.

So Rigby kind of taught me.

(upbeat piano music) Knowing that I'm contributing to people finding family members in the furry variety is so heartwarming to me 'cause I'm making a difference.

(upbeat piano music) - [Announcer] To learn more, go to agoldphoto.com.