Charlotte Reeves Photography

If you’re after a strong, well made and original looking leather collar for your strong or large dog, you simply must check out Ruthless Leather. Ruth (who is also a talented dog photographer based in Sydney) and her husband Dave collaborate on creating these amazing products which include collars, leads and even matching cuffs so you can be super cool and stylish, just like your dog.

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!

A few weeks ago I ran a competition on the Charlotte Reeves Photography Facebook page, giving away a free photoshoot to the most deserving entrant to celebrate 100 fans. I had renowned Seattle dog photographer Erin Vey judging, and the dog she chose was Lupe the Great Dane, with the following entry:

“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.

By popular demand, I’ve also created a Great Dane calendar for 2010. All proceeds from calendar sales will go to Great Dane Rescue. Great Dane Rescue is a fantastic group of people who work together to find new forever homes for rescued Great Danes all over Australia.

If you would like to support Great Dane Rescue and in the process get yourself a fantastic 2010 calendar full of beautiful Great Danes, please consider purchasing a calendar from Red Bubble.

When I studied photography in 1999-2000, it was back in the days of film. We developed our own colour and black and white film and did all our own printing by hand in the darkroom. Digital cameras were in existence, but they were poor quality 2 megapixel things that we only really regarded as toys – something to play around with – not for serious budding photographers! Years later when I upgraded to a digital SLR, I decided to keep my film SLR which then sat in my cupboard for years until late last year when I decided to put a roll of film through it just for fun. Funny how back in the day, digital cameras were for playing around on but now, it’s the film cameras that have taken over that role.

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.