Pictures With Your Pet, A Growing Trend For Pet Parents
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Family portraits and holiday photos are a tradition that most people are quite familiar with. However, pets may not be so accustomed to cheesing for the camera.
A new trend of posing for pictures with your pets is becoming embraced by a population of pet parents who may not have children to include in their family portraits.
Mike Jones and Cindy Capobianco are a couple that are fully embracing the trend.
Jones always had a love for cats, a love that is now evident in the form of his family portraits that include them.
Jones, a Lancaster native and Penn State alum, moved to Bentonville, AR with Capobianco and his love for cats came along. The couple has been together for five years.
"When I started to feed the neighborhood cats, Cindy started telling people there was a crazy cat lady trapped inside of me," Jones said.
Last Christmas the couple decided to take a family portrait for the holiday which included their cat, "Nittany," a fitting name for the pet of a Penn State alum.
This year, the family added another member, Neve, who was a kitten available from a friend of the couple's.
Neve's arrival led to even more photos.
"We're both in our 30's so we have LOTS of friends and family who have had babies. We're constantly seeing monthly updates on their likes and dislikes. We didn't want to be left out of the fun and since we don't have any kids, we decided we would celebrate our fur baby! So for Neve's 2 month birthday, we did a quick iphone photo-shoot in our dining room with a chalkboard door with his likes written on it. We posted it on Facebook and everyone loved it!"
The pictures of Neve inspired full "family," portraits and Jones thinks this might be the year the family sends out proper Christmas cards. "There are so many good ones to choose from. We're also talking about getting shirts made, maybe even mugs."
Jones also plans to have the photos properly framed and hung like many families would do with their family portraits.