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Client Session ~ Boo the Great Dane { take 2 }

Posted on 27 July, 2009 by admin

You might remember Boo the Great Dane from a few months ago – I originally photographed him in a fantastic old cemetery in Sydney. He was 9 months old at the time, but today is his first birthday so is the perfect time to post some photos taken at Boo’s second shoot which was done a couple of weeks ago.

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…

Client Session ~ Asha the American Staffordshire Terrier

Posted on 10 June, 2009 by admin

Asha is one of the three beautiful dogs I photographed last weekend, the other two, Toby and April, will follow over the coming days.

Asha the American Staffordshire Terrier is just over a year old, definitely the baby of the family. Although young and very playful and active, Asha is quite clever and quickly worked out just what I wanted from her. A very focused girl when there are treats on offer, she discovered the how to work the vending machine (me) and developed into the perfect little doggy model.

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I couldn’t resist getting a shot of her frog impression.

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What a pretty girl!

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Doggy details.

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Asha loves her beanbag and posed beautifully on it for me.

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No furniture is out of bounds for these lucky pooches (sounds a bit like my house) so we tried some shots on the great vintage lounge seat.

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After the serious business of modelling, we headed down to the yard for some relaxing and playtime.

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Client Session ~ Giselle the Great Dane

Posted on 11 May, 2009 by admin

While we are on the subject of Great Danes, I thought I’d share one of the dogs from a recent three dog session I had while in Sydney over Easter. The owner in question actually has a total of four dogs and regularly takes on foster dogs from the pound, buying them time so they can be rehomed. The work she does is amazing and she’s been instrumental in saving many wonderful dogs who would have otherwise met their end while waiting for a new home at the pound.

When her beloved Great Dane boy Xander sadly passed away, she decided that now was the time for her to treat herself to a puppy, after so many years of taking on adult dogs and foster failures.

So, meet Giselle! Giselle is a beautiful merle mantle girl with big brown eyes, the cutest black and pink muzzle and a most endearing expression. Never fear though, she knows how to assert herself in her pack as well!

Those big brown eyes look amazing in both colour and black and white.

Love those little white whiskers!

As a final note, Giselle is a total water baby, and super smart too! She loves playing with the garden hose and actually grabs it in her mouth, hauls it over to her water bowl and fills the bowl with water. Don’t believe me? Check out this video of Giselle when she was younger, doing exactly that. Plus more of Giselle and her water-baby ways.

Great Dane puppies!

Posted on 6 May, 2009 by admin

Like most people, I’m a sucker for puppies. When I found out that a Great Dane breeder whose website I manage, Jazzebella Great Danes, was having two litters this month, I was so excited and couldn’t wait till they were born so I could go and take photos.

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.

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

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

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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.

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Gorgeous little merle mantle.

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This merle boy was the chubbiest of the lot.

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

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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!

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Expect more photos at the end of May!

Great Dane Championship Show – Sydney 2009

Posted on 16 April, 2009 by admin

Over the long Easter weekend I headed down to Sydney for a very busy few days of photo sessions (coming soon) and lots of Great Danes! On Good Friday we headed to the Royal Easter Show to see the Great Dane judging, however they switched the schedule around and put the Danes on first, meaning we arrived too late to see them.

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.