Yes any dog can be a model

Have you ever thought that your dog was too wild, too distractable, too shy, or just too much for a portrait session?

You are not alone. You may be surprised to know that it's a common fear many of my clients had prior to their session, and I'm here to tell you, that your dog is not too anything for a session.

Another surprise for you is that I prefer dogs that aren't perfectly behaved. let me explain. Back when I first started photographing dogs, my dogs specifically, they loved modeling. It meant lots of treats, and they would happily jump up on whatever I wanted them to jump on, knocking each other off. This sounds great, right? I'll be honest, sometimes it was. I could mold them into whatever crazy positions I wanted them in, and they wouldn't move. But, even though they were in different positions, they had the same exact expression in every photo. Staring at me waiting for a release, or some other verbal cue to do the next thing. It was very Zoolander. We don't want that. 

My goal is to capture the personality and different expressions of each dog throughout their session, while the dog has a fun outing. 

Every dog is different and each session will go differently based on the individual dog. I'm sharing a few sessions where each dog had completely different personalities and needed to be handled differently to accomplish the goal.

Frank

With most dogs, I use my different noises to get their attention off of their owners and on me, with an alert expression. I generally start out with kind of quiet sounds, and as the session goes on, I switch to louder noises (unless of course, the dog is fearful). 

Well Frank, is a special boy. He was very happy. very high and focused on his human, who was standing next to him holding his leash. I was using my 70-200 lense, so kind of far away from Frank and his human.  I used my softest sound, and it was too much for him causing sending him into crazy over-the-top barking mode. 

He isn't feral or viscous, he just looks like it in the top photo. This isn't quite the look I was hoping for. So we moved, reset him a bit in a new spot and I tossed a toy in the air and over the back of my head. 

Worked like a charm to get the image below.