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Client Session ~ Baileys the Staffordshire Bull Terrier and Billy the Fox Terrier

Posted on 30 October, 2009 by admin

These two lovelies live on waterfront on the gorgeous Gold Coast, what a great life they lead!

They have a big deck and a fantastic garden to while away the hours.

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Baileys is a 10 year old Staffy with a such a laid back and cruisy attitude.

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Her best mate Billy the 7 year old Fox Terrier is a serious boy but very attentive and was constantly trying to steal food out of my treat pouch, very sneaky!

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But very cute as well, posing here on the garden path for me.

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The little beach and jetty was a great spot for photos.

Couldn’t resist a shot of the two of them, when they paused for a second to check out a boat.

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Gotta love those wise old staffy eyes.

I had a great afternoon chilling with this gorgeous pair and we managed to wrap up the session just as the rain came and it bucketed down! Thanks for a lovely afternoon guys.

Care Vet Group Calendar Shoot

Posted on 20 October, 2009 by admin

I recently spent a weekend up in Toowoomba photographing a total of 11 dogs and two cats for a calendar for Care Vet Group, what a blast! The owners of the dogs and cats that I photographed had all won their place in their vet clinic’s calendar by sending in a photo.

All the dogs were brought to a park and I had half an hour each with them to grab a decent shot for one month of the calendar. It was challenging, interesting and fun and I met some great doggy and owner characters.

The calendar will be out in November but until then, I’d like to share a few of my favourite shots.

Jazz is a beautiful young Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, a total pleasure to work with. She had all the tricks down pat, sit, down, stay (mostly!) and though very energetic she was very treat motivated which always helps!

Molly is a wonderful old Labrador Retriever who won her place in the calendar by her owners sending in a shot of her holding her lead in her mouth. The park was a bit distracting however and she wasn’t particularly interested in her lead, so we improvised!

Next up was Stubby, a gorgeous little 6 month old Fox Terrier. He was very attached to his Mum and Dad and I had to be quick to get his attention before he scuttled back to them for a cuddle!

Probably my favourite pet of the weekend was actually a cat! Imran is an 11 year old Domestic Short Hair and was just the loveliest old boy. He seemed to love being centre of attention and posed for me readily inside and out.

He’d recently had surgery on his face so wasn’t looking his usual perfect self, but is still such a handsome man.

Another striking looking feline, Razi is a black Domestic Long Hair with virtually the opposite temperament. He was quite happy to hang out in his own little area inside thank you, and didn’t want to pose for photos at all. We did manage to coax him out by the spa for the little while though (cats take some serious convincing when they don’t want to cooperate!), just long enough for me to get a few nice shots of him.

First thing on Sunday morning I had the pleasure of working with litter sisters Cilla and Pinot, six year old black Labrador Retrievers. They were such a well behaved pair of girls and even had a special word that they perked up to – “treats” – worked perfectly every time! Of course they were rewarded with actual treats when they did, gotta keep the models happy.

Benny the Beagle has the sweetest face, but I am only going to share with you his nose because that’s the bit I like best!

Lilly is a gorgeous, happy little 4 year old Maltese, obviously well loved by her owner.

I just loved Clementine! What a great dog, so well behaved and with very chilled out owners, it was no surprise. Gotta love those eyes with natural built-in black eyeliner.

Pasha the Pug is a super energetic little guy with a few issues that he doesn’t let slow him down. In fact, it was hard to get him to stay still, there was so many smells to sniff and people to go and make friends with, he was unstoppable!

Cappuccino the Dalmatian was my last doggy of the weekend and I just couldnt resist a shot of that lovely spotted chest.

I’m getting a copy of the calendar when it comes out so I will be sure to share when I receive it!

Client Session ~ Dallas the Labrador Retriever

Posted on 17 September, 2009 by admin

Now living in Brisbane but still loving the beautiful Gold Coast, Dallas and her Mum were more than happy to come back down the coast for a photo session and agreed to a very early morning shoot on the dog beach at the Spit. We were greeted with amazing light, perfect weather and blue skies, well worth the effort to get up so early!

Dallas the black Labrador is just one and a half, and already she and her Mum have a visible bond.

Wherever her Mum was, Dallas was sure to be found – well except when she was off meeting and greeting other dogs like your typical friendly Labrador!

Sometimes shooting into the light can be as rewarding as shooting with it, and the following couple of shots are no exception, probably my favourites from the session.

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You just can’t beat the crisp clean feel of early morning light at the beach though.

I was warned that Dallas was ‘just a bit obsesssed’ with tennis balls, and she soon found one to bring to us, demanding a game.

Who could resist this look?

As you can probably tell by the sand all over her nose, Dallas was justly rewarded for her patient modelling with lots of ball throwing.

What a beautiful, happy girl. We had such a fun morning, thanks guys!

Personal ~ Playing with Film

Posted on 11 August, 2009 by admin

When I studied photography in 1999-2000, it was back in the days of film. We developed our own colour and black and white film and did all our own printing by hand in the darkroom. Digital cameras were in existence, but they were poor quality 2 megapixel things that we only really regarded as toys – something to play around with – not for serious budding photographers! Years later when I upgraded to a digital SLR, I decided to keep my film SLR which then sat in my cupboard for years until late last year when I decided to put a roll of film through it just for fun. Funny how back in the day, digital cameras were for playing around on but now, it’s the film cameras that have taken over that role.

So I shot a roll of 36 exposure slide film – Fuji RDP III colour slide film to be exact. To assist in the fun stakes, I decided to have it cross processed – which means it was developed in C-41 colour negative film chemicals instead of E6 colour slide film chemicals. This means you end up with negatives instead of slide film, with the added wildcards of distinctive and sometimes random colour shifts, an overall contrast boost and bucketloads of gorgeous grain.

Of course my subject matter was dogs – my two girls – Kaya and Luna – at their favourite place in the world, the dog beach at The Spit here on the Gold Coast. I only just had this film developed last week, and we lost Kaya in March this year, so it was both uplifting and incredibly sad to see images of her that I hadn’t seen before.

I’m really happy with how these images turned out. With cross processing you always expect the worst, as this technique can be quite unpredictable with varied and often undesired results. There are a few images in here which I absolutely love though which was a pleasant surprise. All of the images below have not be edited in any way – they are straight digital scans from the film straight out of the camera – just resized for the blog and watermarked.

Enjoy.

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Great Dane Championship Show Sydney ~ July 2009

Posted on 9 August, 2009 by admin

More dog show photos for the Great Dane lovers out there – these were taken at the Great Dane Club of NSW Championship Show at Erskine Park in Sydney in July. As usual, there were lots of gorgeous fawns.

Two of which ended up taking out Best in Show and Runner Up Best in Show.

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This blue boy is gorgeous and came second out of all the male dogs entered.

Each judge does it their own way and it’s interesting to see how they interact with the dogs as they are examining them.

For the black Great Dane fans out there.

The babies were as cute as ever, this little harlequin girl was more interested in giving the judge kisses than standing still.

And this cute little fawn girl stood beautifully…

… but still wanted kisses from her mum.

Best Head is always a good class to watch, as the judges rank the dogs solely on their structure and shape of their head.

This fawn girl has won this class twice in a row.

Some of the other fun classes are Best Veteran – the dog must be over 7 years of age and are often successfully retired show dogs so their return to the ring is often a cause for celebration. It’s good to see the ‘old grey faces’ out and about strutting their stuff, showing they still have it!

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Another class is Best Parent and Offspring where the aim is to demonstrate an improvement of dogs from generation to generation.

For more information about this show, please see the results here and a gallery of all photos here.