The Story Behind the Photographs
This month I’m featured in PDN’s online magazine with an article and interview written by Louisa Curtis of Chatterbox. The piece is about my work with Animal Planet – specifically my recent assignment photographing all 164 dog breeds. I’m extremely honored to be a part of this month’s edition. You can read it here – PDN Online.
Here is the featured photo. Taken of Karen Smith (AB for Discovery) and her two black labs.
The final day of shooting. We came close to our goal of photographing all the breeds in five days: 140 out of 165. Among my favorites are the following images that capture the dogs’ personalities. Just by looking at their expressive eyes, you can tell how they felt about be photographed and treated like celebrities. I thought I would share a few of the outtakes.
Day 3: What I learned today…
One: I’ve learned to love the simplicity and character of a dog’s profile.
Two: Owners of prize-winning show dogs can be very obsessive. I don’t blame them really. Especially given how much time and money (tens of thousands of dollars in some cases) they have invested.
Three: How can dogs see with all that hair in their eyes? Quite easily, I’m told. The hair is mature’s strategic dust buster.
Four: Dogs that look alike aren’t necessarily from the same breed. Some of these dogs look so similar I’m starting to loose track of what I’ve shot and what I haven’t.
Five: It was comical how many times we overheard owners and handlers use the word “bitch”, which was incorporated into every sentence. Some examples: “How’s your bitch doing today?” “That’s a might fine bitch you have there.” “Which bitch are you showing today?” And my favorite, “Look, we’re teasing him with the bitch!”
Here are few of my favorites from today’s shoot. 100 down, 64 more to go.
Day 2 of the Dog Breed shoot with Animal Planet. Another 30+ breeds photographed, dog hair all over the ground and, as always, a lot of interesting people. Here are some of the breeds we met, pictured below: an Alaskan Malamute, a Lowchen and a Cairn Terrier (the same breed as “Toto” of The Wizard of Oz fame), a Greyhound, a German Shorthaird Pointer, a Havanese (primped in between shots) and finally a seal-colored Italian Greyhound and a Brittany.
Day 1: 10.5 hours of shooting. Met some very interesting dog breeds (31 out of 164), some even more interesting people and given a margarita as a thank you. All in all a very successful first day. Here are some interesting dogs photographed. In order as shown below: An Ibizan Hound, a Puli named Ziggy (you can see why), a Chinese Crested, and a Doberman that looks like Batman.
This coming week I’m on assignment for Animal Planet photographing all 164 dog breeds. On location in Salem, Virginia we have five days to photograph dogs like a Basenji, a Harrier, a Kuvasz and a Samoyed. Seems very daunting, but we’re up to task. The goal is to show the personalities of each dog. Animal Planet is using the images on line and for an upcoming app where people can go an see the characteristics of each dog. Below are some examples of shots I’ve recently taken for Animal Planet. I hope to post images each evening from the day’s shoot – stay tuned…
Here are some of the ID ads from my bloodhound photo shoot with Discovery last month. They came out very well. Fun shoot all around!
Main ad running in Trade publications
Two comp ads designed by Matt Ostrom
