'Ridiculously adorable' pet portraits show furry friends as 18th-century royalty

SPRING LAKE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Ridiculously adorable pet portraits. It's a business started by a local woman during "stay-at-home" orders.

A Spring Lake woman is having a blast with a new business she started during the COVID-19 pandemic and pet lovers are going crazy over it!

Jennifer Gerst, a professional photographer and mother of two boys, was not able to do photoshoots during the pandemic, so she started playing around with pet photos and photo-shop.

The result? She calls it ridiculously adorable. Pets immortalized as 18th century-style royalty.

She made a video of her transformations, posted it on Facebook, and people went wild.

"It blew my mind. I was like holy, the video I made. I got 10,000 views," Gerst said, "It was really cool to see something take off."

Gerst, while happy to be making money, is also happy to make people smile during these tough times.

Her work also results in interesting stories from pet owners.

In one memorial portrait of a Westie, Gerst added butterflies, on a whim, not knowing the significance of butterflies to the late pet's owner.

"When her dog died," Gerst explains, "there were so many butterflies in the car when she came back with him, and she was just in tears that I had added so many butterflies and I added one on the dog's shoulder. I guess it was just nice to touch her in that way.. and let her know that her people and her animals were around her."

If you're interested in seeing more or having your pet featured in one of Gerst's portraits you can go to her Facebook page.