Grant’s job takes him away from home quite a bit, so miss Maddie is Ange’s constant faithful companion while he is away. Another reason I was looking forward to this session was the location – these guys are lucky enough to live in beautiful northern NSW, just inland from Tweed Heads and surrounded by green rolling hills, country roads and lakes.

We started off the session on the deck of their house. The light filtering through the surrounding foliage was gorgeous.

Although more than happy to play fetch all day long, Miss Maddie was less than eager for her close ups. We worked out that the focus beep of my camera sounded rather similar to the warning sound her collar made when nearing the boundary fence of their property (as Maddie does love to roam). Also, big professional cameras can be pretty intimidating even without the beeping!

We did end up getting a few cute shots on the deck anyway, the afternoon colours of the filtered sunshine were amazing against her black and white.

To Maddie’s relief, we soon bundled into the car and headed off to a country road nearby where she often enjoys meandering walks with lots of her favourite thing – fetching sticks!

This girl LOVES her sticks and is never far from one!

Maddie was much happier out on the road in familiar territory, and of course sticks make everything in life that much better!

I love this shot of Maddie racing towards her stick, with such an intense look on her face!

With the help of her beloved sticks, we even managed to get some lovely close ups of her out and about enjoying her walk, totally in her element.

Since the session was organised on the sly without Ang knowing, we were able to complete the experience with a surprise viewing and ordering session at their home – we set everything up and when Ang came home from work there was a lovely slideshow of all Maddie’s images on the TV in their lounge room! I love seeing people’s reactions as they view their images for the first time!

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.

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.

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.