Last weekend I had the pleasure of spending two hours with a really special dog. Norton is a 15-year-old black lab and longtime friend to owner Emma, who has had him since he was four. Sadly due to Norton’s advanced age he is suffering from a number of chronic health problems that severely affect his mobility and his breathing. A brave and loving decision was made to give Norton a humane exit from this world, before he has to undergo any unnecessary suffering.

Knowing this was on the cards fairly imminently, Emma contacted me about having some portraits done of Norton. It’s a privilege to be able to create keepsake portraits for animal owners and something that really touches my heart as a photographer and animal lover.

Because of Norton’s limited mobility, we did the photo session at his home, capturing pictures of him in his familiar surroundings.

Norton was asleep when I arrived. I liked that the cards were still on display from from his recent 15th birthday (that’s 105 in conventional dog years or a sprightly 73 in age-adjusted dog years)

Norton’s back legs don’t work so well any more. I love this photo him sitting (mostly) on his bed.

Norton and his owner Emma.

The hallway is another one of Norton’s preferred snoozing spots.

Norton was such a lovely, agreeable model. He was more than happy to hang out and be photographed.

Emma told us that despite his age and frailty, Norton still likes to try to ‘escape’ every day.

And even with his mobility issues, Norton still gets super excited about his official daily walk.

It’s walk time!

Norton still insists on stopping to smell the flowers … and the bushes … and the telephone poles…

After his 1-block walk, Norton gets his daily bone to enjoy in the yard.

Norton and Emma – over a decade of friendship.

Emma had some very kind words to say after receiving the finished photos:

“Thank you so much for Norton’s photos. You have captured the essence of my beautiful boy so well. It’s going to be so hard to say goodbye to him and it’s lovely to be able to enjoy the photos while he is still here…  I really love the photos and love the way his different ‘looks’ have been caught. You can really see his amazing personality.

Norton is a stoic and very special pet. He really enjoyed the photo shoot – he hadn’t been so animated in a while. He was having a blast! All the stardom wore him out – he didn’t move from his mat until his tea time. I even had to wake him up for dinner … a first, he is a lab after all!”

I only spent two hours with Norton and Emma but it’s clear to see they have an incredible bond and Norton himself left quite an impression on me. He’s just that kind of dog. I’m so glad I got the chance to meet him.

I was recently visiting my hometown of Chilliwack, British Columbia and was asked by my good friend Kristen to do some casual outdoor portraits of her with husband Chad and their two gorgeous dogs, Sammy and Maggie.

The autumn colours were in full swing and made a fabulous setting for portraits. We did doggie pictures first, which were a little challenging because neither Sammy nor Maggie are fans of ‘sitting still’, or indeed the concept of ‘looking at the camera’, or even in my general direction at most times!

Patience always win the day when photographing animals though, and we got some great pics of the pooches, capturing both their gorgeous looks and their quirky personalities. The picture at left of Maggie pondering a falling leaf is one of my favourites – it’s just cute as hell!

(The dogs’ leashes are visible in the photos because technically we were not in an ‘off leash’ park so we needed to leave the dogs at least semi-tethered)

Then it was time for the family photo – we wanted to capture a portrait of everyone together which, again, involved a fair bit of canine-wrangling and me making increasingly louder and crazier cat-like noises to capture the dogs’ attention. Apparently there was a very smelly spot on the ground nearby that was FAR more interesting than anything were were doing.

Finally we put the dogs back in the car for some quiet time and so we could do portraits of Kristen and Chad together, once again making the most of the amazing fall foliage. I love the photos against the purple and orange leaves – magic!

They were doing a story on the Abyssinian cat, and needed photos for the cover and inside story. They’d tracked down a breeder of this unusual type of cat, and would I be able to do a photo shoot?

There’s an old adage that says ‘never work with children or animals’ – but as a self-confessed animal lover,  I do pride myself on being able to work with animals that are usually pretty hard to photograph. 99% of it is patience.

My assistant-turned-cat-wrangler Brence Coghill and I turned up to meet Gail, the breeder, and her 30+ cats. Yup, it was cats a go-go at Gail’s house!

The Abyssinian is unique in its temperament – it’s the “border collie of the cat world” – meaning it’s extremely smart and active. The cats follow you around, and always want to be into whatever you’re doing. They’re essentially walking fur-covered bundles of curious energy.

I started with some typical shots that might make for a good cover – close ups of the faces and some full body shots.That in itself was hard enough because of course the cats were not huge fans of sitting still, or being any distance away from me.

The Abyssinian has quite large ears and is very long and lithe – they look quite cool when sitting at attention – so I wanted to get some photos showing off these qualities.

Once those photos were in the bag, it was time to try something a little different. Because Abyssinian cats are super-active, I wanted to try to get some shots showing their crazy frisky nature.

We set up a little play area on the stairway landing. An off-camera flash was on camera left, and Brence stood just off-camera wielding a cat toy consisting of a long plastic wand with feathers on the end. We’d get a few cats on the landing and Brence would work them into a frenzy by twirling the feathers over their heads, enticing them to leap in the air trying to catch it.

It took many, many frames and a lot of total garbage pictures, but in the end we got some really some cool shots, especially once I perfected my timing of capturing a flying cat mid-leap.

The photo shoot was hard work but lots of fun at the same time. Oh, and did I mention I’m allergic to cats? By the end of the shoot I was sniffling and snuffling and I coughed and spluttered in the car all the way home – but it was totally worth it.

The magazine ended up running a nice close up portrait shot for the cover  (reversed left to right from the original) and a full bleed image of one of the crazy jumping photos for the inside story. Interestingly, the photo credit lists the name of the cat (Kemenkat Rox my Sox) rather than my name as photographer – I guess Abyssinians just can’t stay out of the limelight.

To find out more about Gail’s crazy cats her Abyssinian cat breeding website is here. And finally, here’s some shots of published mag:

A lot of people don’t realise is that photographers – even the top shooters –  don’t take a ‘winning’ photo every time they press the shutter. In fact, I’d hazard a guess that the hit rate of the uber-photographers is actually lower than average, because they’re the ones trying the new techniques, taking risks and trying for that AMAZING shot that has a 10% chance of working. What you don’t see on people’s websites (often, although this is now changing with the advent of ‘behind the scenes’ photo shoot mini docos) is the hard work and various less-than-successful attempts to get that perfect image.

The two videos below are a great illustration of the behind-the-scenes effort that goes into making an effort-less looking image. While Joel Sartore is shooting video here and not stills, the principle is entirely the same.

Watch the first video – the polished finished result – then watch the second video to see what he went through to get there

RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

RARE: Behind the Scenes from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

My brother lives in Chilliwack, B.C. Canada, and is going to breed his two dogs – anyone in the greater Vancouver area who would like a gorgeous, unusual, well-tempered yet effective guard dog should investigate this breed – they really are amazing. Check out my brother’s website www.canadiancanecorso.com

I had my assistant/second shooter Brence Coghill with me for this shoot and he took a few of the photos of Bella, including the black & whites and the 3-up layout of me playing with her. Enjoy!

His dogs Buddha and Bella are both Cane Corsos – a unique breed of Italian mastiff.  They’re great with people and are hugely loyal – this was apparent during the photo session as both dogs followed my brother around unwaveringly and were happiest when sitting by his side.

I’m still working through all the photos but wanted to share the first lot with you, all of Buddha. He is absolutely gorgeous and a total sweetie, adoring pats on his head and scratches on his back.

The job was for a lovely repeat client for whom I did some pet portraiture for a few years ago, and who has since gone from 2 to 5 pet pugs. We teed up a photo session to get pictures of each dog individually and in groups – no easy feat!

We decided to do the photo session at the client’s house in order to keep things more contained, as trying to corral 5 run-aroundy dogs in a park would have been nigh-impossible.

I decided to use supplemental lighting for this shoot and brought a lighting assistant with me and set up a number of speedlite flashes (2 off camera static ceiling bounces, one roving shoot-through umbrella unit and on on-camera fill). I have to say it worked a treat, and the dogs were not intimidated or bothered by the equipment or flashing lights – phew.

Overall the shoot went really well – much, much patience was required but it paid off – and we captured a huge range of images, including some nice group shots. Here’s just a few samples from the day:

Monty

Gladys

Bronson, Ben and Monty