From the Archives: Early Dog Portraits

From the Archives 12: This is the very first dog portrait I ever took. In a professional capacity. I was interning at a fine art family photography studio in San Francisco in 2007, working my butt off everyday, assisting and developing film and learning, all with the intent to turn my dedication to photography into a business somehow. The only problem was - I didn't like kids. I tried one session with a family friend and their young kids and it just was mayhem. Family photography wasn't for me. I felt frustrated, like I had hit a wall. Thankfully a wonderful mentor told me I should try photographing dogs. It sounded so dumb at the time. Dog photography was silly and cheesy, all wide angles and cute sugar-coated garbage (in my opinion). However, I had been working with dogs for many years before my internship at the studio and I thought why not just give it a try. I'll make it my own. Shoot the Hasselblad, print in the darkroom, elevate the dog portrait. This portrait of Gus the pug still hangs in my office to this day. Somehow it all just clicked into place for me at that moment. I knew I had stumbled upon something very special, and that short little session with Gus truly changed the direction of my life. Gus and Pancake were good buddies when they were puppies. They both loved bandanas. 

From the Archives 13 (?): Here's some more dog content to lift your spirits. This is another very early dog photography commission, which was actually for a good friend (who I used to play music with in my rock + roll days) and his wife. I drove up to Santa Rosa on a very hot Summer day. There wasn't enough light in my client's house, so I suggested we drive to a nearby park. The dogs wanted to run around, and I was having trouble hitting my focus with the manual focus ring and waist-level finder on the Hasselblad (which actually shows you everything in reverse because of the single reflex mirror). If you've ever tried to photograph a quickly moving target with a 1970s Hasselblad you know that feeling of dizziness (at least until you get the hang of it). To be honest, I really knew nothing about making work for clients at that point. I was just making it all up. So I decided it would be easier if I ran alongside the dogs while juggling my camera and somehow not falling on my face. That's how this image came to be. I love how you can tell this was shot with a waist level finder, because the lens is clearly on the dog's level. The diagonal lines and balance of chaos and composure in this image really influenced the visual style I was developing so early in my career. I've always loved balancing chaos and composure in my client work. When working with dogs there's really no other way to go about it. In order to tell an authentic story about our animals we have to let them be free, and inherently that invites chaos which forces me into a very challenging environment in which to create portraits. I love that challenge so much.