Tag Archives: dog photographer

Client Session ~ Ellie and Finn [Part 2]

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We had part one of Ellie and Finn’s photo session at the beach on the Gold Coast. Unfortunately we had to end the session early due to an angry swarm of sandflies that we were totally unprepared for! The next weekend I headed up to Brisbane to capture this gorgeous pair of pups at their home and took up where we left off.

These two girls play together so well! The first half hour of our session was spent running around with the girls as they enjoyed their new toy together. Sharing is caring.

Finn does tend to forget this at times though and runs off, hoarding the toy. Which sometimes means poor Ellie loses interest (and leaves Finn wondering why she’s not playing with her any more).

Finn was definitely the star and camera hog of the session so I made sure I paid special attention to capturing shots of Miss Ellie as well. The hard part with her was managing to capture her before she realised that I was within cuddle/licking/attention distance to her.

Upon which she would rush over and attend to all three tasks at once! Here I am trying to fend her off with my knees (with Finn still totally absorbed in her toy in the background).

Did I mention Finn was a major camera hog? This girl is the perfect combination. Happy to keep her distance but also totally happy to sit there posing it up – whether that be looking directly down the camera lens or staring off into the distance.

What a ham! I love the bit of grass on her nose.

A few times while totally absorbed in photographing the born model, I would lie down to get a good angle…

Only to have the inner reaches of my ear enthusiastically assaulted by a rather affectionate Ellie.

After much playing and hard work (my doggy models work hard for their glamour shots!) Ellie was quite happy to sit at a distance, giving her best blue steel impression.

Interspersed with looks of knowing and humour that can only come from a dog who has been on this earth for ten years.

She had both of these looks well and truly under control, methinks a certain someone had been holding out on me!

Towards the end of our session, it was time to bring out the treats for some focus.

Although these kinds of shots may be seen as cliche, I still love them as they represent a view of our dogs that we are so familiar with.

Bringing out treats however is not without it’s hazards! Among them, spit bubbles and crazy rolling around on the ground kinda reactions, apparently…

As the sun dipped towards the horizon, I played around with some gorgeous late afternoon backlight for these shots of miss supermodel herself, Finn.

I had such a fantastic time with these girls and their family too, thanks for letting me share your home for the afternoon! I stuck around for a while and had lots of lovely Finn cuddles afterwards, while Ellie crashed out on her bed and caught up on some well-deserved rest.

Client Session ~ Herbie & Bamm Bamm the Havanese

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Continued on from Harry’s post, Herbie and Bamm Bamm are Harry’s two little brothers. Both Havanese, they are gorgeous little dogs. You could say that this breed quite popular with Bec’s family, as I’ve also photographed Mali who belongs to Bec’s mum!

Bamm Bamm is three years old and the most independent of the pack.

He has the most silky, softest fur and I was especially taken with his little white fluffy feet, how cute are they!

While he loves attention from people and is a lovely friendly little boy, he’s also quite happy being off on his own, doing his own thing.

We took a trip to the park for a change of scenery and poor little Bamm Bamm got bitten by a nasty ant on his paw. He was valiantly limping around but with some persuasion in the form of delicious treats still managed to pose beautifully for these shots.

His little brother, the youngest of the three at almost three years of age, is Herbie.

Herbie is Bec’s special boy, in her own words “Herbie is my soul mate dog, he has 100% stolen my heart”. He was a wedding present from her husband, arriving on a plane from Melbourne and straight into Bec’s arms. He went through a lot of pain and health problems when growing and as a result, has bowed front legs that don’t quite function as they should and are still quite painful. Perhaps because of his ordeal or perhaps just because thats’s just the way he is, Herbie doesn’t really feel comfortable with pats and cuddles from anyone other than Bec or her mum.

Luckily for me though, Herbie is quite interested in food and it was no problem to get his attention!

With a bit of patience, we even had him sitting and staying at a distance for some gorgeous photos with his big brother Harry in the background.

I just love his brown eyes against his lily white (super soft and fluffy!) fur.

We ended our session at the park with Herbie looking adoringly up at his mum with the sun sinking down behind the trees in the background. Awwww!

Client Session ~ Harry the Golden Retriever

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Bec has been a long term client of mine, she first contacted me to photograph her horses which was actually my first horse session. When she got married I photographed her wedding (yep, my first wedding), then when baby Josh came along, it was time for a photo session with him as well. And yes, that was my first baby photo session!

Finally, 3 years later, we’ve managed to get around to photographing her three gorgeous pooches – Herbie, Harry and Bamm Bamm! I’ve split this post up into two as there were just too many lovely shots to include in one and I wanted to share them all.

So first up we have Harry the Golden Retriever. Harry is the leader, peace keeper and general nice guy of the pack, blessed with a typical Golden Retriever personality.

His Mum sums it up best:

“I tell everyone that Harry is the Dalai Lama reincarnated or will be the next official Dalai Lama. He is the kindest, most gentlest soul I’ve ever met. There isn’t another dog like Harry, he’s extremely sensitive and in tune with people and animals emotions, and loves all creatures great and small. Harry’s even helped foster kittens from the AWL and let them hang with their claws from his jowls and just looked at me like ‘ummm I don’t know how to get this creature off me!’. He’d never think to harm anything even if it was hurting him! Just a beautiful soul and the calming alpha force keeping my three dogs in check!”

Rebecca is lucky enough to live on beautiful property, so we decided to take Harry off on a little walk by himself down to his favourite place, the creek.

He was a little confused that we wouldn’t let him have a swim, but oh-so obedient in obeying his Mum’s requests to stay away from the water, although that didn’t stop him looking longingly in that direction!

Harry has his stays (plus many other awesome tricks) down pat and was so easy to work with against the various backdrops the setting provided. I especially loved these tall trees – the Australian bush is so pretty!

I’m in love the almost watercolour-like background of this shot, and Harry’s keen expression.

We were also blessed with some gorgeous late afternoon light.

Harry was just an absolute delight to work with. A gorgeous, gentle, wise and happy soul, Rebecca is truly blessed to have him in her life!

Stay tuned for part two of this session, featuring Harry’s little brothers, Herbie and Bamm Bamm the Havanese.

Client Session ~ Frankie the French Bulldog

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Frankie’s parents were lucky enough to score a gift certificate for their session and when I found out what kind of dog they had, I was delighted! I’ve been wanting to photograph a French Bulldog ever since I saw one in the flesh. They are such cool little dogs, so different looking and with awesomely photogenic features.

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!

Client Session ~ Odin the Golden Retriever and Inara the Labrador Retriever

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Odin and Inara’s parents were lucky enough to win a photography session with me in the Golden Retriever Club of Queensland’s Silent Auction a few months ago. These are two of the most chilled out retrievers you’ll ever meet, guaranteed!

We had the session at a family members place they hadn’t visited much before, so they were pretty keen to check out all the new smells. Inara is just 12 months old and definitely the most relaxed Labrador Retriever pup I’ve come across. She has the sweetest face and who couldn’t love the cute little ridge on her nose?

Like one typical of her breed, she loves playing in water, happily digging all the water out of a bucket, before discovering this ornamental fountain! I’m sure she thought it was put there just for her to drink out of and play in.

Odin the Golden Retriever is a rescue, estimated to be about 3 years old, who joined the family after Inara. They instantly became best friends! Something tells me though that the gorgeous Odin would quite happy get along with anyone or any dog he’s introduced to.

The two get on famously and while content to just chill out near each other, when I brought out a squeaky there was a bit more excitement in the air, so they took it up and notch and gave us a demonstration of their play fighting abilities!

The backyard we were in is a lovely location, with a deck, lovely green grass and gardens. It provided some great colours and textures for backgrounds!

Odin really is just a big cuddle bunny.

He loves lying flat out on his back getting belly rubs from his Mum, I swear he’s smiling here!

Being such a chilled out and happy boy, it was hard to get him to look alert for his starring shots! I managed here, but of course the lip caught up in his teeth kind of spoils the effect. It’s a pretty good representation of his character though!

Odin and Inara’s parents were keen to get some pics of the two dogs together, so we set them up and I snapped away and got lucky enough to score this one. I had to save up my most crazy high pitched noise for this and it paid off with the dual head tilt action, awesome!

Thanks for letting me spend the afternoon with you and your lovely dogs! It was a pleasure.