Now who was waiting for me there you ask?

Meet the first of my two gorgeous subjects. Gus the Great Dane is gangly teenager of 18 months old. Even for a Great Dane and even not being fully grown yet, this boy is one of the tallest I’ve met (and I’ve met a lot!).

Gus is the king of his backyard and demonstrated how well he uses the small space by racing down the stairs from the deck, then back up the rock garden beds to the level of the house, which is about 2 metres high, in two huge leaps, making it look very easy in the process!

Unfortunately due to the low light, small space and sheer athleticism of Gus, I didn’t manage to get a photo of this feat but trust me, it was nothing short of spectacular. This is the aftermath of one of these demonstrations, ears fashionably cast back (Luna would be impressed) and big pink tongue poking out at me. Nice look, Gus!

When the rain finally gave us a break, Gus was up for some serious modelling in the backyard.

We even decided to push our luck and go for a quick walk to the local park around the corner. There were lots of interesting things to look at with people moving around in their yards and bins being put out for the night, so we managed some very alert looking shots of Gus showing off his handsome head.

This is a personal favourite, what a stunning boy!

We got back to the house just as the next shower came over so it was back under the shelter of the deck for us and time to focus on my next subject, Ollie.

Ollie is a four year old Silky Terrier cross Maltese. Gotta love those bottom teeth making an appearance!

Ollie and Gus are quite the pair, definitely the tall and the short of it.

I’ll finish with one of my favourite shots from the session!

Thanks for having me for the afternoon Michelle, it was great fun hanging out with you and your gorgeous pups!

Time was of the essence with Frankie as she’s just on 5 months old and her parents wanted to get some shots of her while she’s still little. We had a couple of false starts with the weather, but on the morning of our session the conditions were perfect. We met at a local waterfront park and the light was just beautiful.

One reason why they wanted to have Frankie photographed quickly, is that over time she’s developing more brindle patterning in her glossy black coat. She was almost pure black when they brought her home but over time, the brindle is creeping in.. and we all know brindle is the naughty colour!

That lovable cheekiness is starting to creep in already and makes a lovely mix with the sweetness already so apparent.

Don’t Frenchies just have the best little faces?

Frankie loves running with her dad and checks with one eye to make sure he’s still there running with her.

Her ears which are usually flipped facing forward, get pinned sideways for better aerodynamics while racing flat out. She’s got the most hilarious flat out run, with her bum out to the side and her back half reaching to overtake the front!

Such a good girl at our session, she happily posed up on the picnic table for us.

Our next location was a short drive down the road to a lovely little boardwalk. It was a popular place for people walking their dogs and we had to keep an eye on the ever-curious Frankie as she was quite happy to wander off with whoever passed by.

I thought having a Great Dane was a conversation starter, but Luna has nothing on Frankie! Pretty much everyone who saw her wanted to know what breed she was, many people having never heard of the breed.

And really, if you saw this sweet face looking up at you, would you be able to pass by? (If you look carefully you can see me in her eye reflection, almost doing aerobics moves trying to get her attention)

Growing next to the boardwalk was a lovely bed of bright yellow flowers, and we couldn’t resist the urge to stick her right in the middle for some Anne Geddes inspired shots.

Towards the end of our session Frankie was tiring out, making it a bit easier for me to get far enough back from her for some shots. Like most puppies, as soon as I got down near the ground she’d run over to investigate!

I held out until the end for my very best attention-grabbing squeaking noises, just to get some awesome head tilt action like this. It worked!

Thanks for being such a great little dog Frankie!

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.

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!

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

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!

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.

For some reason, you don’t often see many brindle coloured Danes, it’s probably about the rarest of the showable colours. This gorgeous guy was the only one in attendance on the day.

Fawns generally dominate the showing scene and this show was no exception.

A beautifully marked harlequin – note the pure white background and glossy black patches that have a ‘torn edge’ appearance.

Speaking of glossy black!

The baby puppies are always entertaining to watch, this one was very well behaved and stood nicely while the judge examined her.

Another pretty puppy in black along with one of my favourite fawn girls.

The dogs have to show how well they move as part of the judging process, the girl above girl was flying along and looked amazing.

To finish off, another harlequin. This was her first show back after giving birth to 11 puppies!

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

So enough about the location and onto the star of the session – Boo! This lovely boy was 9 months old at the time of our shoot and your typical gangly and exuberant Great Dane teenager. With a tongue that rarely stayed inside his mouth resulting in a constant endearing doggy grin, he obviously enjoys his walks through the cemetery and adjacent park, running through the long grass and sniffing around the old gravestones.

I just love his distinctive white chest blaze.

We managed to persuade Boo to sit down and relax for a while in the long grass an open corner of the walled cemetery enclosure, resulting in some nice quiet shots.

Then it was back to exploring again.

Before settling down to chew a stick, Boo looking at me with a familiar ‘dare you to come and get me!’ attitude.

In the grounds of the cemetery is also St Stevens Anglican Church. Built in 1874, it’s a lovely old church featuring gothic revival architecture and these amazing doors! The light was fading fast by this stage but we had time for just a few shots of Boo featured in the doorway.

If you’d like to know more about this very special place, check out the Wikipedia article on the history of the Camperdown Cemetery and then head over to the offical website of the St Stephens Church in Newtown. Interesting stuff!

“Bozley is cunning, sly, impetuous, loving, eager to please, dominant, the class clown and bad to the bone. He is also extremely cuddly.”

I certainly wasn’t disappointed – Boz was a complex character! Such a busy boy, so much to do, checking the fenceline perimeter, giving his Mum kisses and cuddles, rolling in smelly mushrooms along with sniffing absolutely everything in the front yard. A challenging boy to shoot but very rewarding.

Ok, so I admit I am obsessed with head wrinkles!

Last week I had the pleasure of heading up to Brisbane to have lunch with Narelle and spending some time taking pics of all the little munchkins in both litters for her website. Nineteen in total! I was in heaven. I get to go back when they are four weeks old and take some more. They will be running around by then so something tells me it will be a bit more of a challenge.

Being a harlequin litter (the Great Dane colour of white with black patches), it’s always a bit of a lottery to see what comes out. Generally there will be harlequins, blacks (with varying amounts of white markings on the feet and chest), mantles (also called bostons) and merles (the mousey grey colour), with variations including whites, merle mantles and lightly marked merles, often called ‘merlequins’.

Narelle and co-breeder Stordansk Great Danes was lucky to get a total of seven nicely marked harlequins out of nineteen puppies, which is quite good! Always depending on conformation (how they are structured), the showable colours are harlequins, blacks (the less white the better) and mantles. Unfortunately the merles are not a showable colour in Australia, though I think they are gorgeous.

You can see all the photos here – Keisha’s litter – Jazzie’s litter – and read and see more about the dams and sire here. In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite shots.

All the puppies minus one, from one of the litters.

What a face! Don’t you just want to kiss his nose? This is a mismarked mantle/black puppy.

One litter had a total of five harlequins – four girls and one boy. Due to the way the genes work, harlequins will almost always display some merle patches along with black patches.

Gorgeous little merle mantle.

This merle boy was the chubbiest of the lot.

The only male harlequin out of 19 puppies, this little guy is pretty special.

A ‘merlequin’ (harlequin marked merle) and his merle mantle brother. These two mirrored, I have an number of photos with them doing the exact same pose mirrored, right next to each other!

Expect more photos at the end of May!

I wasn’t too worried however as the Great Dane Club of NSW held their bi-annual Championship Show on the Sunday which I had the pleasure of photographing. So many beautiful dogs made my job super easy and I thought I would share a few of my favourites.

A couple of gorgeous mantles (bostons in the USA).

Another stunning mantle boy on the move.

I love this moment between this big baby boy and his ‘mummy’.

Another of her baby boys.

A cute little blue girl from the same breeder as my Luna, see any family resemblance?

She is such a bright, alert girl and totally up for a cuddle when I went to say hello later on.

Big blue boy with the most lovely quiet personality (excuse the tongue out, it was quite a warm and steamy day).

Fawns always outnumber the other colours and this show was no exception. This boy took out Best in Show.

With his daughter taking out Runner-Up!

The structure and look of a Great Dane’s head is quite an important aspect of judging and is something the judge pays careful attention to.

This fawn female took out the honours in the special class of Best Head. Although the cropping of ears is illegal in Australia, handlers will often hold the ears up to enable the judge a better view of the outlines and shape of the head.

One of my favourite fawn girls.

Looking spectacular on the move.

Lined up for judging.

Last up is this beautiful little black girl. What a cutie!

For more Great Dane show photos, just head on over to my site www.greatdaneshowphotos.com and click the Sydney April 2009 link.