I have been interested in doing Dog photography for a while now. I have practiced on my own dog previously to get the lighting how I wanted it and practiced different types of editing. A fellow Photographer and I had been discussing having a play date to be able to build a portfolio of images to offer these sessions to clients.
We spoke about this several times over approx 1 year. Finally we had a date both of us could do. There were over comments in total and around images of peoples fur babies. After a few days of discussions we had decided on the dogs we were going to use. Neo was a 12 year old Labrador Cross Sharpei, Neo was very calm and not bothered about his surroundings, he seemed very settled straight away. When i retrieved the ball out of my bag that is when we saw a totally different Neo.
She was a great model for us to work with, she would do anything for the treats i had in my pocket. Next up was Nellie who was a 5 month old Great Dane. At first Nellie was a bit concerned in walking through the door however her mum got her in without a problem. This reminded me of a program I watched years ago where you have the trainers help you out with problems with your dog.
There was one episode where there was a Great Dane that was scared to go through doorways and onto shiny tiled floors. I had instantly remembered about this and knew the problems Neo had with standing on the shooting area, I got Nellie to stand on the backdrop and i could see her slipping a bit and knew that this may be a problem for her so rather than stressing her out we got the mat out again. Nellie did jump a few times but once her mum settled her we got some fantastic images from her.
About 30 mins after they had left we received a message where Nellie was in her bed fast asleep as all the modelling had been a bit tiring for the 5 month old, she looked so cute. Amber the 6 Year old Chow Chow was next to arrive. Amber came across as a dog who wants to do things on her terms. So she was carried. Milo was the most unusual color dog I had seen. He was a French Bulldog cross Pomeranian.
