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Client Session ~ Milly and Mack the Rottweilers

Posted on 22 May, 2011 by admin

We actually arrived before sunrise for this very early morning beach session and in a short time were greeted by this beautiful sight. Getting up early for these sessions is so worth it, especially with a perfect clear sky like this!

This is one year old Mack – he loved soaking up the early morning sunshine and exploring the beach, so he pretty much stole the show early on in our session.

I love this flying tongue and head-tilt shot all in one!

Mack and his big sister Milly (older by only 6 months) are the best of friends.

Mack loves to chase flying sand and water, and puts on quite a show!

I don’t think Milly really understands the concept, but she’s happy to join in and give the jumping Mack a hard time!

Nothing better than a happy wet sandy dog at the beach!

Later at the dog park, Milly proved to be the more attentive model.

Mack preferred to be intruiged by a tractor at the other end of the park and I managed to capture some very attentive looks from him.

A family portraits was on the cards, luckily the dogs were pretty worn out by the stage and happy to pose with their mum and dad.

You can tell these guys really love their dogs!

Client Session ~ Ellie and Finn [Part 1]

Posted on 2 December, 2010 by admin

Ellie and Finn are two gorgeous girls who live in Brisbane with their family. They were dedicated enough to get up at a ridiculously early hour for the drive down to the Gold Coast for their morning photo session at the beach. We started at just on sunrise, which at this time of year is just before 5am. You can just imagine how early they got up, given it takes an hour to make the drive!

Unfortunately the gorgeous bright early morning light I was counting on never made an appearance as it was very cloudy, however we still got some lovely soft light shots of the two girls enjoying their experience at the beach.

Four year old Finn was loving the sand, quickly discovering it was awesome to dig holes in!

Burying her head in the sand quickly turned her into a bona-fide sand monster.

Once the squeaky toy made an appearance though, she was momentarily distracted!

This early in the morning, other dogs on the beach were rare, but Finn was always very interested in them, tracking their progress along the beach intently.

The dunes are a favourite place of mine to shoot in, with the soft grey-green grasses and salt-tolerant, wind-twisted trees in the background.

Ellie was also loving the beach. She’s ten years old, but don’t tell her that!

Ellie has that trademark Staffy smile down pat.

If you’re wondering about Ellie’s ears, she had some surgery on the folded one a while ago and it never stood up straight after that, but I think it gives her so much character!

We had intended to stick around at the park behind the beach for some green grass shots, but the sandflies had other ideas and relentlessly drove us off. We all survived (some itchier than others!) to fight another day and decided to organise the rest of the shoot a week later at the girls’ house in Brisbane. So, more photos of these gorgeous girls to follow!

Client Session ~ Rafe the Australian Terrier x Maltese

Posted on 7 October, 2010 by admin

Since the beach is pretty much Rafe’s favourite place in the world, we decided a beach shoot was the way to go! We’d been battling with the weather and had a few postponed shoots already, so on the afternoon of our session, although it was quite cloudy, it wasn’t actually raining so we decided to go ahead with it regardless. When I arrived at the beach, I was greeted with a LOT of this:

His owners Gerard and Christie had arrived about half an hour beforehand so they could get the beans out of him in time for my arrival, but there were still a few beans left by the time I turned up! We started off up in the dunes and although the sky was pretty grey, the muted tones of the sand and sky and ocean in the background ended up complimenting Rafe’s colouring beautifully.

With all that running around, it’s inevitable that sands gets EVERYWHERE.

Lucky mum was there to get it out of his eyes.

Rafe was definitely one of the most fun and energetic dogs I’ve photographed. He was completely at home at the beach, racing around in the sand, digging, burying his head, rolling and all manner of fun sand related doggy activities! What a beachy boy he is.

He was also quite curious and was intruiged enough to follow my camera around, trying to work out exactly what game it was that we were playing.

One of the most popular toys I take along to sessions are these little squeaky animals. They are great to hold and make noises with when trying to juggle a heavy camera and get a dog’s attention. Rafe decided that he LOVED it though and was quick to permanently adopt this little red caterpillar I’d brought along!

He really, really loved it, and spent quite a while lying in the sand burying it, unburying it and generally throwing it around. His antics had all three of us in hysterics for quite some time!

I felt a little mean for confiscating it for a while but don’t worry, he got to take it home with him afterwards. Apparently he was still playing with it days later, although he had managed to de-squeak it (probably to the immense relief of his mum and dad).

Rafe was a wonderfully willing model and consented to being placed up on some rocks for modelling duties. Love those fluffy legs!

Gerard had actually organise the session as a birthday present for his fiance Christie, so we set up a few family shots.

Christie spends a lot of time with Rafe, he’s her constant companion, so we had to take some shots with the both of them. We worked out that at 18 months old, Rafe must be going through that teenager phase. While quite happy to hang out in the general vicinity of his parents, when it came time to get up close for cuddles and love he got rather embarrassed and shamed out and decided he didn’t want a bar of it. Typical teen!

To finish our session off we headed around to the rock wall section of the Spit and Rafe did some further exploring. Definitely in mission mode in this one!

But still quite happy to pose on some rocks for us.

I just loved my session with Rafe and his mum and dad! They were so fun to work with and what a rad little dog! If ever I get a small fluffy dog, I’m gonna order one exactly like him (or possibly have him cloned).

Client Session ~ Macca and Baxter the Cavalier King Charles Spaniels

Posted on 16 May, 2010 by admin

It was so hard narrowing down images for this post! There were just so many that I loved, I may as well have just posted the whole session. Macca and Baxter are two very well loved family pets. They usually reside a lot further west (their family is from Roma in Queensland, about 7 hours west of the Gold Coast) but lucky enough to be brought on holiday with their family. How lucky are these two!

Our session was at The Spit dog beach on the Gold Coast. It was a rather windy afternoon! We started off with some shots of the dogs and their human siblings.

Then moved to the shelter of the dunes where we were blessed with some calmer conditions and lovely late afternoon sunlight, perfect for candids! This is Macca, he’s the older of the pair and just loves chasing his ball and being with his people.

The younger of the pair is Baxter – he just loves to head off and introduce himself to potential doggy friends!

Together they make a lovely matching pair – alike in looks but actually pretty different in personality.

Their human sister just loves them, I’m sure they get lots of cuddles like this when they’re at home.

While Macca was quite happy to hang around and play ball with his family, Baxter was much more interested in exploring. I love the shots I did get of him though, what a sweet face. And yes, those ears really as as soft as they look!

Here’s Baxter scoping out his next potential doggy friend further down the beach.

Macca was quite content to just sit around, hoarding his beloved ball.

Then Baxter joined him for some fun and games.

After I was sure we had enough nice ‘dry dog’ shots in the dunes, we headed down to where the dogs were dying to get to – the water!

Being spaniels, these two were right at home in the water, even if this was only their second time at the beach in their lives! They were soon racing through the whitewash, chasing balls and having a grand old time.

As we were leaving the beach and walking back to the car, the sun came out from behind some clouds and provided some beautiful sunset light. It was almost a pity they looked so wet and bedraggled looking, but hey at least they look like they’d been having some fun!

Client Session ~ Dallas the Labrador Retriever

Posted on 17 September, 2009 by admin

Now living in Brisbane but still loving the beautiful Gold Coast, Dallas and her Mum were more than happy to come back down the coast for a photo session and agreed to a very early morning shoot on the dog beach at the Spit. We were greeted with amazing light, perfect weather and blue skies, well worth the effort to get up so early!

Dallas the black Labrador is just one and a half, and already she and her Mum have a visible bond.

Wherever her Mum was, Dallas was sure to be found – well except when she was off meeting and greeting other dogs like your typical friendly Labrador!

Sometimes shooting into the light can be as rewarding as shooting with it, and the following couple of shots are no exception, probably my favourites from the session.

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