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Client Session ~ Comet the Golden Retriever and Sun the Australian Cattle Dog

Posted on 31 July, 2011 by admin

Meet Comet and Sun, two rescues who are lucky enough to live near the beautiful Cabarita Beach in Northern NSW. Comet is a 9 year old Golden Retriever, named for his gorgeous full tail, as illustrated in this shot!

The late afternoon light at the beach was just perfect and played up Comet’s lovely thick golden coat when backlit.

Not to be outshone, Sun worked the light too and looked much more alert than her age of 10 years would suggest.

Comet had me in stitches with his upside-down stick chewing antics.

Whereas Sun was quite happy to pose it up in the sunshine near the rocks.

Earlier in the afternoon before heading to the beach we’d had a bonding session in the backyard, and these two proved to be excellent models.

Client Session ~ Lexie and Chloe the Cavalier King Charles Spaniels

Posted on 10 December, 2010 by admin

Carla (a fellow photographer) and I had been mutual admirers of each others work for a while, so when she heard I was coming to Adelaide we began discussing the idea of me photographing her two pups. Lexie and Chloe are almost-two year old Cavaliers who are greatly loved by their mum and dad. Carla tragically lost her first Cav, Lucy, when she was hit by a car at only 9 months old. She been due to have a new baby sister (Chloe) arrive in just a month, so when they lost Lucy they started looking into getting another baby to join the family as well so Chloe wouldn’t be all alone. Lexie was found and turned out to be the perfect match, named ‘Heaven Sent’ by her breeder. Chloe was born on Valentines Day which also happens to be Carla’s birthday so another little sign there too!

So, although the family had lost one precious pup in very sad circumstances, the heavens had aligned and sent them two gorgeous girls instead. Meet Lexie (left) and Chloe (right).

We started off our session at a local dog park around mid afternoon. There were a few other dogs around at the time who were very interested in what was going on, espcially when they realised there were treats involved, but we managed to find a lovely little spot down the back on an old log. Getting the girls to stand and balance on the log proved to be somewhat of a mission, but with lots of practice, encouragement, treats and some pretty crazy noises from me, we got there in the end!

The afternoon light coming in from behind really shows off their gorgeous soft hair, framing Lexie with a halo of light. Heaven sent indeed!

I thought this shot deserved some extra special processing to accentuate the late afternoon light and show off the mood of the place. My favourite bit of this image is Lexie’s little back foot in the air, in the middle of taking a step along the log.

When the other dogs at the park became just a bit too distracting, we headed off on a walk around Mawson Lakes to see what we could find.

The perfect little family! How cute are these guys.

Lexie was very interested in the edge of the water and if she wasn’t on a lead, I have no doubt she would have been in there in an instant, splashing about in the reeds.

Not content with just looking, she decided that eating them would be the next best thing!

Chloe was a bit calmer and quite content to stand and have a look around at all the goings on by the edge of the lake.

I love this shot of Lexie with her big tongue!

The boardwalk we found a bit further along provided a great background for some ‘walking on the lead shots’ – love the girls’ expressions – stoked to be out and about!

Soon enough it was time to head back home for some photos in the girls’ backyard. From Carla’s descriptions of the two, I thought Chloe would be the harder one to photograph as she’s a bit of a nature girl, always off chasing bugs and poking around the garden. This wasn’t the case though when there were treats and attention involved, I love her expressions in these shots!

Gorgeous Lexie in the rock garden.

Out of the many, many attempts we made at getting the two girls in a photo together, we managed to get them sitting beautifully next to each other for this shot. It certainly helps to tire them out first!

And I couldn’t resist a shot of their gorgeous feathery legs, I just loved Chloe’s little curly chest hair.

What a pair of hams!

Carla thanks for letting me spend the afternoon with you, it was so lovely to meet you guys and your gorgeous pups. I can’t wait to see what you do with the photos!

Client Session ~ Ellie and Finn [Part 2]

Posted on 4 December, 2010 by admin

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.

I’m coming to Adelaide! 26-28 November 2010

Posted on 17 October, 2010 by admin

If you’d love some beautiful, creative and candid photos of your favourite furry friend then let’s book you in for a session while I’m visiting. These sessions will be priced at my regular rate and will include the usual:

Photographers time and talent
On-location photo session for 1-2 subjects
Shooting time 30 minutes – 2 hours
Includes 1-2 locations i.e. home, local park, beach and dunes, urban or city, foreshore etc
The best 30 images (more for extra subjects) are carefully selected and edited to perfection
A mixture of colour and black & white images

I’ll be in town from Friday 26th November until Sunday 28th November. The remaining spots I have are:

November 27th – Saturday morning 6am

Gift certificates are available and remember that although I specialise in dogs, I also love photographing cats, horses and other furry friends. I also really delight in capturing the bond between you and your pet if you wish to be involved in the session as well.

The price for the session will be $550 (which includes a huge $300 order credit to spend on whatever prints and products you like).

If this sounds like just what you’ve been waiting for, get in quick as the opportunity to have your precious pal photographed by an award-winning specialist pet photographer doesn’t happen every day! Drop me a line at pix@charlottereeves.com.au or call me on 0402 322 973.

Here’s a few of my favourites from recent sessions to get you thinking.

Client Session ~ Maggie and Jessie

Posted on 10 August, 2010 by admin

These girls were the subjects of my very last session in Townsville and have the amazing privilege of living in doggy paradise! With the best doting parents a doggy could wish for, along with a gorgeous beach on their very back doorstep, life doesn’t get much better than this. This was another very early morning session and although slightly cloudier at times than Vash and Riley’s session, still came through with some wonderful light.

Jessie the German Shepherd is 11 years young and the fourth of the same breed for this Shepherd-loving family! She really has no concept of her age and although might not hear and see as well as she used to, still cuts a striking figure on the beach with her stick of choice, racing around like puppy.

Maggie is a bit of a first for this big dog loving family. Kylie and Jon were having Christmas drinks a couple of years ago with their then-neighbours, who had a gorgeous little fluffy puppy that Jon fell in love with. It turned out that the rest of the puppies from the litter needed homes too, so Kylie and Jon quickly decided to bring the only girl left into the family. Maggie the Maltese x Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is now two and a half years old and very much part of the family!

She is very much loved by her Dad and gets snuggles at every opportunity, as well as these special belly rubs. So funny to watch! She will just stand there as Jon puts his foot under her chest, and goes all the way along her belly and up her back legs. Maggie loves it and will stand there for as long as it’s on offer.

Although at the time of booking it was just a two dog family, there was a third little dog hanging around when I arrived to do the shoot. Buddy is a 6 year old Maltese x Poodle, advertised in the paper as a giveway. He was originally intended for a workmate who loves Maggie. I’ll let Kylie continue this story…

“When we saw him we all fell in love with him and he was so quiet and well behaved, we thought he would be perfect for Brian. We got him home and noticed he had really bad breath and when we looked in his mouth we were horrified to see how bad his teeth and gums were. They were so infected and dirty, the teeth and gums were grey. We took him to a wonderful vet in Townsville who looked after him but unfortunately his teeth were so bad, most of them just fell out once they started to clean them. Not to worry, he still manages to chomp his way through life. The longer we had him the more we fell in love with him. He is so gentle and loving and after what we put him through at the vets, we felt we couldn’t give him away, so now we have to find another dog for Brian!”

I love this shot of Buddy and Maggie, looking into their future together.

As the session was originally intended for just the two dogs and Buddy was still a bit sore from his dental work and desexing, he doesn’t star as much as the other two in the photos. I am glad I managed to get a few of him for the family though, it was great to hear they’d decided to keep him! So, back to Maggie and Jessie.

Maggie was absolutely hilarious on the beach. She alternated between racing madly around in figure of 8′s in a blur of white fur and violently displaced sand…

To digging holes and burying herself…

There wasn’t really a lot of middle ground, it was either flat out, or, well, flat out!

After spending a while on the beach, we retired to the ‘beach shack’. I just loved this place. It has been in Jon’s family for 50 years with Jon’s dad building the original beach shack way back then. Since then, it’s undergone some pretty extensive renovations with an extra floor added and a lot more room, including the best man-cave shed I’ve seen in a while. It’s still managed to retain a lovely relaxed beachy kind of feel about it though, it was so nice to relax on the back deck with the dogs, I’m sure they appreciated it just as much as I did!

Before posing the dogs on a comfy wicker chair for some shots, I asked if it was ok that the dogs be up there. I don’t think Miss Jessie especially is allowed up there often, but they said it would be fine for the photos, so up they went.

Jessie made herself quite comfortable.

A little too comfortable perhaps. I was later told that for days afterwards, the dogs thought it was well within their rights to jump up on the chair and make themselves comfortable whenever they liked! It was worth it for the photos guys, I promise! Oops!

Little Buddy was content to just hang around and observe the proceedings. Doesn’t he just have the sweetest face? And a gorgeous temperament to go with it, he really deserves this new life he’s found for himself.

From the deck, the view over the backyard and to the beach not far beyond was just too inviting, so we moved into the garden for a few more shots. As long as there were treats and interesting squeaking things involved, Jessie was a keen model.

What a beautiful girl, how’s that wise expression.

I get the feeling Jessie spends long hours in this garden, observing the goings-on, and of course sleeping!

With all the beachy mischief well and truly behind her, Maggie had her serious modelling pants on.

And who could resist those big brown eyes!

I love this one of the two girls.

That was the last of my Townsville sessions! As all the photo sessions were from the same family, I felt like I got to know them over the few days that I was there. Such a genuine, caring, down to earth and especially dog-loving family would be hard to find anywhere else! Thanks for the awesome coffee, the amazing breakfasts (how lucky am I), the fantastic stories (even if I had trouble remembering them all) and local knowledge and most importantly, thanks for inviting me up to photograph your doggy family, it was a pleasure!