The Pets calendar features images from client sessions in 2011. View and purchase the Pets Calendar.

For Luna fans, her annual calendar is filled with images from 2011 and includes a couple of special guests. December includes, as always, a special santa hat image. View and purchase Luna’s calendar.

If you’re a past client (doesn’t matter how far in the past) and would like a calendar featuring your pet only, I also create custom calendars using your images. You can either choose the images you want in the calendar yourself or leave it up to me. There is a $50 setup fee and calendars are then available for purchase online for $27 each + postage. Just send me an email to get the ball rolling!

Here’s a calendar I made for Albert the cancer survivor. You can view Albert’s blog post and read his story here.

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!

I couldn’t resist including a sunset photo.

Luna has her own Facebook Page and blog – make sure you check them out if you haven’t already!

Thanks to her doting Mum, my little girl Luna was lucky enough to score a custom design – it’s a cross between the Nightowl and the Asteroid Belt and has now been added to the product range as the Lunatic. It features blue and clear reflectors on black leather with silver fittings and I think you’ll agree, suits Miss Luna down to the ground.

The quality is second to none, the sheer weight and substance of these collars must be seen and held to be believed. The leather and stamping is high grade and the fittings are just so sturdy and well matched. I’ve had to ask Ruth to send me some business cards due to the number of comments and questions we get when out and about! Each collar is custom made to suit your dog with easy-to-follow neck measuring instructions sent before construction starts. They are so accurate, that out of the five holes for the buckle, the centre hole is the perfect fit. Best of all, Ruth posts her creations worldwide!

We opted for the Hands-free Leash in a matching design (clear reflectors), you’ll find some images at the bottom of the blog post with myself and Luna modelling this setup. Fantastic idea and we use it like this so often! Thanks to my brother Andrew for taking the shots of Luna and I.

Without further ado, here’s the images of Miss Luna herself modelling the collar and lead and actually not doing too bad of a job, for Luna! I think she’s stepping up her game a bit with the modelling lately, taking after her big sister Kaya. Enjoy!

Miss Luna as had her very own doggy photo blog for a while now, carried on from when Kaya was around. If you’d like to see more of Luna and keep up to date with her latest adventures, join her new Facebook Page for extra photos, videos and fun facts. Luna loves her fans!

“This is Lupe our 22 month blue boy. He is the center of our world and knows it. He love the dog park and the beach (but not the waves – still cant swim). Poor baby has had a rough time this last year. We nearly lost him earlier this year when he got pneumonia and spent a week in ICU. A few weeks ago he got bit on the hind leg by another dog at the spit (beach) and had to go back to the same hospital for surgery to open the wound up. Thankfully despite being spoilt rotten he’s a trooper.”

I’d actually already been in contact with Lupe’s owner as we were going to organise a play date with our two blue babies, so it was an added bonus to be able to tell her that she’d also won the competition!

I visited Lupe and his devoted Mum and Dad in Brisbane on a fine summer afternoon. They had a fabulous back deck that we spent a while hanging out on.

Being a blue Great Dane, he felt quite similar to photograph to my own Luna, except maybe a tad more photogenic and not so prone to pulling silly faces!

In fact he is a rather serious looking boy most of the time.

Who still manages to be super cute when it’s called for.

And very good at the head tilt! Most dogs have a particular sound they do this to, for Lupe it was a quiet high pitched whistle, very effective!

Lupe has an unusual ridge running down the back of his neck – as someone cleverly pointed out – a mohawk!

Along with at matching little strip of white on his chest, very classy.

After the serious modelling business was over, we took Lupe for a walk to his fabulous local park.

Where he said hello to the equine resident…

Puzzled over his Dad up a tree…

Said goodbye to the horsie…

Then topped it off with a guzzle from the drinking station, in true Great Dane style.

If you want to see more photos from Lupe’s session, visit his gallery on Facebook.

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.

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.

After that it was off up the hill to the bush section of the reserve with lots of big boulders to stand on and do what Great Dane do best – look majestic!

Sparkles was a perfect subject, being five years old she had most of the puppy business out of the way and I could focus in on the details.

Then it was back to looking regal again on the rocks.

Finishing off with one of  my favourite shots – the nose! Noses on harlequin Great Danes often start off with lots of pink then slowly fill in with black as they grow up.

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.

The location this time around is the beautiful Berry Island Reserve near Wollstonecraft in Sydney. What a beautiful location – it had it all! The exposed sandstone near the water’s edge had the most amazing colours and bright green moss too.

There is a cute little cove on the harbour complete with sandstone, sandy beaches, shells and pebbles and even little rowboats dragged up on the beach to allow people to access their boats moored in the harbour. By the way, how much more grown up does Boo look, compared to his photos of three months ago?

Some people arrived in their little boat while we were there and Boo was instantly captivated.

A captivated dog is a good dog! Sometimes it’s the perfect recipe for getting them to stand still and focus for more than two seconds at a time. What a handsome boy he’s grown into.

The shot on the left wins hands down as my favourite from the session.

Gotta love that early morning light.

Just to give some perspective, here’s one that almost-but-not-quite made the final cut… what a silly cute boy Boo is!

And for even more perspective, this is what we saw of Boo for about 90% of the session…