Valerie Howes

I had a a dog that had been abused and again this dog had such a sweet personality. I I was a little bit in love with this dog. And I had been told at the start of the session about the dog's history, so I was being mindful not to get too close. But then, you know, I kind of relaxed and we're in the moment and I was I went with my foot to trample down some long grasses that were blocking the dog's face and uh

The dog was triggered and so he he took a little bite out of my pants. But it not the dog's fault.

This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is your today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. My name is Scott Olson, and today, folks, we are gonna go into a kind of photography that that frankly strikes fear into my heart.

Um, and then there's all sorts of photography that does that, not because they're dangerous, not because they're life threatening, but because they are so wonderful and difficult at the same time. Wedding photography, for example, would be right at the top of of the list of things that strike fear in my heart because, you know, the the opportunity to miss it is so large.

But there's another kind of photography, there's another kind of effort out there which just Gives me the the the shivers because I've tried it. It is difficult. It it it's not going to, you know, break a bone, but the the the amount of effort that goes into getting it right is gargantuan. Today we are talking with Valerie House. Valerie is is one of the planet's best photographers of Dogs.

Valerie is a is a prof has a professional dog photography, wild and rough photography, and her work is outside. She is a journalist, a um lifestyle and travel journalist. Her work's been in the CBC, Toronto Life, Toronto Star, National Post. The Guardian Reader's Digest, th the list just goes on and on. Uh born in Scotland, she's living up in Prince Edward County, uh Ontario right now. Valerie, welcome to the podcast. How you doing today? I'm well, thank you.

I I gotta tell you, th this is just really, really special work and and I am a fan. Um and and I wanna get into it a little bit here in a minute, but you've got a great story. as as to how even y you th this all came into your life. So, born in Scotland, used to go hiking, uh t tell me the story of hiking around Scotland. Yeah, so um when I was young, my aunt and uncle used to take my cousin and me uh on these trips around Scotland where I grew up.

And they were hiking the perimeter of the country. So we would spend one week going up the east coast and one week going down the west coast. And by the time I was in my mid teens I'd pretty much seen the whole country. I I love that as as a goal. We're gonna walk around the per the perimeter of an entire country.

Um but but clearly you were digging this. I mean th this is you weren't being, you know, forced on a march in in bad weather. This is something that you found sustaining and fulfilling. But yeah, I loved it. Like at the time when I was younger. you know, I sometimes I was like, uh why are we walking fifteen miles a day? But then, um, you know, I I saw so many beautiful things and incredible nature.

Um that it really gave me an appreciation for my country. You're you're walking around the country and y you're doing this with with your relatives. Were there dogs with you then? No. Um I had five cats when I was growing up. Is is that the reason you got into dog photography? I loved cats and then something just switched in my I think in my late twenties I got my first dog and my my son was very little so they grew up together.

And uh yeah, I I I still love cats, but I'm kind of obsessed with dogs. Oh man. Dogs are special. Uh d you know, I I've grown up with dogs, always collies, um and and absolutely felt uh a kinship there. But okay, so you spend you spend your early years uh learning the outdoors, you're walking around Scotland, you wind up um moving into journalism and moving over to Canada. Tell tell me about this transition. How did this come in come to play?

Yeah, so I I studied French, French language, and then ended up moving to Quebec. I lived in Montreal for several years while I was working on postgraduate studies. And I loved Canada and kept extending by a year, then another year. And now more than half my life has been in Canada.

And and w how did the journalism come come into play?'Cause I know th th that began with writing, but then the camera came into your hand as well. I just wanted to write. I wrote a magazine article, it was accepted, and around that time an old old school friend from Scotland who I'd last seen when I was twelve years old, he showed up in Montreal and lo and behold he'd just started a magazine and he

I told him I I was writing now with one piece under my belt and he offered me an editor position. And that's that's the way it happens for all of us, just so you know. But okay. So I was completely self taught. I I you know, it was like walking around in a dark room without a flashlight for the first few years. But um I I was just really passionate about about writing and uh so that first job I I wrote about culture and movies and books.

And then I moved into um into travel writing after that and that was when I was really asked to bring along my camera and capture what I was writing about. Did did you think of yourself as a photographer right then or or was this just something you were forced to do? No, I mean I left it. I think I always had a pretty good eye and I I could see interesting shots and compositions, but um not very technically minded and I didn't use my manual settings for about the first Two and a half decades.

No, it's very much an automatic settings until I took up dog photography and was like, okay, come on. N now just tell me how the dogs came into your life. Yeah, so um I was working as a journalist during COVID. And um I'd been in my job for one year when uh the company I worked for was was bought and shut down by

one of our competitors. And yeah, it was very sad. And at the same time my landlord had sold my house. So just felt like for many people during lockdown that a lot of things were kind of grumbling and shifting in life, but there was also this opportunity to do something you'd always wanted to do. I'd had a relationship with an island in Newfoundland called Fogo Island for about a decade and I'd always wanted to live there.

Toronto was very, very shut down. For nine months we we couldn't do anything other than buy soap and groceries. And um So it felt like a really good time to move somewhere where we'd be able to to live a little. And a job came up um in marketing for Fogo Island Inn and the business a bell to people, um you've probably seen an image of it. The the Fogo Island Inn is is this Huge beaut architecturally stunning inn set basically on rocks. Part of it's up on stilts, it overlooks the ocean.

It it's been on my bucket list of visit for ever since it opened. But it is challenging and inspiring and daunting photographically just as a place. And you wind up g getting a chance to go work there. Yeah! So uh we moved our whole life over there, the dogs as well, and while we were there You know, there's not a lot there in terms of entertainment. There's one restaurant open a couple of days a week in the summer only. And uh

There there would there was a great art scene. There were lots of artists living there so it was culturally enriching but There weren't distractions like in the city, and a lot of people made their entertainment by creating, so by quilting, by sculpting, painting, and uh I was really enamored with the island, the just the raw beauty of the island, the nature, the light. the constantly changing weather. So I decided it was time to take up photography and

I didn't just want to do landscape photography. What was really inspiring me when I first moved there was watching my dogs come alive when when we went out. You know, there's such a difference between taking the dogs out in the streets of Toronto in an alleyway and on a leash to having them bounding across hills and swimming.

In the ocean, with chicks of ice, playing tug of war with seaweeds. It was it was just they were ecstatic. And I really got sort of a mismatched pair of dogs at this time, at least in terms of size. Yeah.

I have one very long legged yellow lab slash German Shepherd and then what my friend describes as a Muppet with a Karen haircut. Little Karen Terrier Yorkie called Pina. And now Pinya was a rescue dog. She was, yeah. She's from Texas originally. Okay. I mean, wh why why did you seek to f to do well to get a rescue dog, but you've also fostered dogs? What about that sensibility is speaking to you?

All dogs are good dogs. You know, I don't think you have to go to a breeder or have a dog that looks a very specific way to have a beautiful relationship with your dog. We fostered Pinya. She was one of many dogs we fostered and And she was the one that we couldn't say goodbye to. She was just very, very charming and And sweet, so she stayed.

I can see in my mind, you know, bounding over over the hills and the beaches, or beaches, you know, the rocks um on Fogo Island. But th there's gotta be a moment where you're staring, you know, up at the sky thinking, I could make this more than just

A happy afternoon. W where did the idea of a business come from? So I at first I was photographing my own dogs and basically they were running amok and I was learning how to use my manual settings and trying to capture something decent. And then I took some I took some courses in dog photography, uh, virtually and There were exercises in that that involved getting dogs to do specific things and assume different positions and be in different settings. So I started to borrow people's dogs

And photograph other dogs and get people to to help me a little bit to assist. And uh on Fogo Island, uh people don't lock their doors. It's it's very safe. It's like living, you know, in another century. So sometimes I would call somebody who had a dog with a specific look I wanted for a specific image and say, Oh, can uh Can you bring Judy over? And they would Say, Oh, I'm working, but just go and get her. So it's just a little work, grab a dog, stick it in my car and

Well well but but pause like that you said you you took some online or or some virtual courses in dog photography, which I didn't know existed, but makes perfect sense. Um but the dog has no idea what you're doing. So how how do you get a dog to behave in a way that is relevant to a lens? Well first of all.

Some dogs are afraid of a camera, especially a large camera. Okay. So you do some habituation. It's almost like clicker training where you you press the shutter a few times, you give the dog a treat every time they hear that noise, so they start to oh, oh, the camera's my friend and And then same thing, you know, for luring dogs to do different things, you'll use treats, uh squeaky toys. Those are very good for getting pretty adorable head tilts.

A ball. Um, sometimes you use a dog's favorite word, so uh I'll always ask the owners what dogs uh sorry, what words get the dog excited and it would be like Grandma, Grandma, where's Grandma? Okay, okay. Where's the car? And that gets them like, you know, you want you don't just want them looking at the camera, you want them to be pumped and excited and to have energy in their expression. So there's lots of tricks. And we also, uh, when I'm not doing it by myself,

I work with the owner. Uh most of the time, especially when I did really establish my business and I moved back to the city in Toronto, the dogs are not off leash. So we would use Photoshop and remove the leash afterwards. But that kind of helped have a little bit of control if you wanted a dog to stand in a certain spot or to climb up onto a rock or How how what makes a good dog photograph of a good dog, but but what makes a good dog photograph?

Engagement. I think uh yeah, like I was saying, you you want the dog to show some vitality and energy. Um, you can tell when a dog's happy and really focusing on the eyes. Getting a little sparkle in the eyes is important. Well d okay, th let me ask a technical question then. Um because yeah, th the the eyes are everything in probably any animal that that we're ever gonna shoot, including humans. But I know from trying to photograph Uh a collie with a very long nose

Um yeah. In the background, some shooting wide open. Um and the eyes might have been in focus, but not a bloody bit else on the dog w was there. Um how I mean given the the huge physical differences between large and small, big nose, flat nose, hairy, smooth, your technical repertoire has to be big. Yeah, you you have to experiment a little bit and think about does this dog have a flat face? You know, like a bulldog or a pug, or is it a hound with this big hooter that you have to and I I

don't necessarily have every element of the dog's face in focus. It's like it's really all about the eyes. And then we would adjust a little bit, maybe F four for a dog with a super long nose, two point eight. is pretty typical for most dogs. So I y I mean you still want to see the definition in the fur on the face. But that crystal clear eyes with with almost

facial features or it kind of the focus fades a little bit as the the face goes back. That that's okay. And that's generally accepted among dog photographers. There are very few who are aiming for full focus on the tip of the nose and everything else.

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And now?

today's conversation. And I I'm looking at your portfolio, I mean, you have all sorts of distances between yourself and the subject too. You know, you've got one dog standing many, many yards away, you know, in a bunch of mini icebergs. Um and then you've got other dogs, you know, the their nose is almost up to the end of the lens.

Um but w one picture that we've talked a little bit before we started recording that that I especially admire um is is this little white dog. I don't I don't know the breed. Just running straight towards you. There's some rocks on the side, you know, nice blurred out background. That that is a great story. Tell me the story of this image. So that little dog I was lucky enough to get four paws off the ground.

And uh she was a rescue that I photographed near Barcelona. I went on a dog retreat with some international uh dog photography instructors. No, no, wait wait, wait, wait. So th i an international gathering of dog photographers gets together to Conversation, you know, practice. Um again, I I just find that I would love to overhear that conversation at dinner time. But so you got a bunch of pros out there. Yeah, the retreat was called Barcolonna, actually.

And that was in a a very old village called Olivella. And uh so our instructors had arranged an advance for several dogs to come to each session. We would do one or two sessions a day and then uh we were in these gorgeous settings. There was a a viaduct in one. This was a an old cobbled street. It was just gorgeous. And we did some city shooting at night as well. And

learned a bit more about using lighting. Okay. And um and then in the daytime, you know, we were analysing our work and editing and um, learning a little bit about the business of dog photography. So it was just we just

From morning to night we talked lived, breathed, dog photography together. And and and and this particular shoe, tell me how it came about. Uh so we had uh the owner, Fiona Lovett, who's also a dog photographer. She stood up the top of the street holding on to this little dog's haunches. And then we had someone right behind me um really crouched down low so that their face was just above the lens and I was lying flat on the ground, like the lower you are.

the better it is and you can you can get that space between the ground and the dog's paws. And really s it's as if the dog's flying. So I have my hype person behind the lens and when when I was ready I gave the go sign and hype person's like yelling, calling the dog's name. And she just came belting down the cobblestone. Oh man.

Now for this shot did you just sort of zone focus and wait for the dog to run through your focus area or did you have a super fast, you know, tracking autofocus system here? Because it's spot on. I wish I had animal eye tracking but I I don't. I have um a Canon five D Mark III so it's not the most

It's not the newest camera. I use burst mode and I I tried to set the focus kind of round about the middle of where the dog was running, so I knew that she would have hit her stride, she would be big enough in the frame. So that was where I was hoping to get a few in focus and we repeated that multiple times so that we knew we'd have something at the end.

Uh d is it more difficult to shoot a dog that that is still sort of classic portrait than it is to shoot a dog that's moving? Because any dog I've ever tried to shoot has not stood still. Um I mean you only have to get a split second when they're still. Sometimes people can't believe that we even managed it because, you know, you do get very antsy dogs and energetic dogs. I find it easier when the dog is in opposed.

But I like to mix it up because in a session you want it to be really fun for the dog throughout. And they they do get bored if they're asked to do the same thing for too long. So we'll always break things up, um have them chase a ball, which is super fun for most dogs. um have them run, sometimes they'll do tricks, dance, roll over, that kind of thing, and give them some free time just to sniff around and um or lie down and then try and get some candid shots while they're just

Being dogs. Yeah. Tell me about the iceberg shot. Oh, so that's Judy. Uh she's a Cape Shore a water dog, which is the ancestor of the Labrador, really beautiful dog. And um that was behind her house. So on Fogo Island most winters at a certain point um you go to bed one night. And all you can see is ocean and you wake up the next morning and all you can see is is these giant blocks of ice and they all kind of

It's like the ocean is breathing with this thick layer of ice on top of it. So they're not icebergs, it's called pack ice. Right. And they f they float down from Greenland and they bring things like seals and polar bears and Arctic foxes. So the pack ice was in, as they say, and Judy as a water dog, she does not care what temperature the water is, she will find water and go in it. So I was I was with her owner, Michelle and

She just darted out. Uh, Judy, not Michelle. Judy darted out and then she's she's scanning, probably for birds in the ice. And I just like threw myself on my belly on the ice and captured a few shots before she darted off again. So uh b but you're in a a parka in big boots and all that stuff yourself here. Yeah. Y you know, you you talk about, you know, the the dog pictures, but you you approach this

on a business side in in a couple of different ways. And one of the ways is that you go you have a specialty in the very old dogs, in in the end of life dogs, the celebration of life dogs. Where did that definition come from in terms of your business? And also how do you approach that kind of a session? I decided to call them celebration of life images because End of life is super sad, but I hoped uh but that's essentially what they are and I hoped that that would come across.

You know, uh uh my two dogs now are my third and fourth dogs. We've we've had to say say goodbye to the first two. Um, you know, at about the age of twelve and fourteen and It's just devastating. Your your dogs become like family members. And um, you know, if you're like me they maybe grew up with your children. So

All these memories are tied in with your dogs and the way that dogs love their family is very pure and unconditional. You know, there can be weird dynamics between people, but everybody loves the family dog.

So many people when they know that their dog is is gonna die soon, um, or terminally ill or very, very old, they decide they wanna do a portrait session. And um So I come along and, you know, I ask a lot of questions in advance about the energy level of the dog, any physical issues they might have. try and get a sense of what the dog is capable of and then we have these these quiet sessions where we try and capture those last portraits.

In in general, how much pre planning, p you know, pre session planning goes into your work? Because y it's not just, hey, it's Tuesday, let me show up and see what you got. No, I always ask people about places that are very meaningful to them and their dogs. Um, not a local park. I don't do parks unless it's like, you know, well, High Park in Toronto is gorgeous.

Central Park I would do. But I I look for really natural areas where again that it's activating this joy for life and the dogs. We usually have about a half hour interview in advance. um, select a place, figure out how far the dog can walk, you know, whether we're gonna be doing it all kind of in the one area or we'll do a tour. Uh one dog that I photographed

Must have been three or four days before the dog um had an appointment to be euthanized and um the dog's name was Guinness. He was an Irish setter living on Fogo Island. And um so Guinness's back legs were collapsing on him and the family knew that things were getting really rough. with arthritis. Um, but he did well and we did a loop and they wanted to show me uh where Guinness was gonna be buried and uh they had this this gorgeous

little garden or a small farm on the edge of the North Atlantic Ocean looking out to sea and the rocks. And uh there was a patch of sunflowers up the back of the garden and we We did some photos among the sunflowers and we talked and they were telling me, you know right beside there was where he was gonna be buried. So that was very meaningful. And we try and tell a story in the photos that we take. D do you ever find yourself heartbroken?

Yeah, you know, sometimes you get a bit teary but I I really like I love connecting with people and having real conversations and Uh you know, and I I don't mi people whose dogs are are close to the end, they will typically cry during a session. But there's also I it's also really beautiful, you know, to ask them about their dog when it was a puppy and to hear the stories that they have to share. And I like to you know, to be part of um helping them to process things and

to do something really special and create this lovely memory with their dog. So it's heartbreaking but it's also beautiful. I I I would imagine you wind up in in some degree playing grief counselor as well as photographer when you're there.

Yeah, a little bit. Um, uh on the other side, puppies. Um, did you ever get a call, hey, we just got a brand new puppy, let's let's do a a session? You know, I haven't done a brand new puppy. I've done some really young ones. Uh there's one on my portfolio that you can see her name was Princess Betunia of Petty Parpe.

Wait, we we we we gotta talk to some people about the w the names for their dogs, especially show dogs. But okay, go on. Tell me about Princess Petunia. So she was a few months old and full of beans. So we had some of her she was in St John's, Newfoundland, and we had some photos of her tearing down the hills and um We uh eventually we wanted some still shots, but she didn't

have a stillbone in her body at that age. So I asked um I asked her owners, Janet and Liam, who were good friends of mine, to stand side by side at their front door, which was a very colorful spot in their home and we kinda clamped Petunia in between them, so we just have that that split second when she stood still and looked at the camera and captured captured a shot of them together as a family.

Well now th and this leads me to one of the the questions I've got. You sometimes do have the owners, very rarely, uh, according to your portfolio, but you do sometimes have the owners in them, mostly knees down. Um, you know, sometimes you you've got the whole person in there, but w when is there a difference when you when you're photographing, say, the family versus the dog in terms of composition, in terms of the kind of feeling you're going for? Yeah. Um I I try not to do too many with

with owners because I don't really know how to photograph people very well. The way that I don't have the depth of expertise I have with dogs. But I I like to capture the bond and the relationship. Right. Um, if people are open to that. So sometimes you know, it'll be a cute shot like that with the dog at the feet and uh I always ask people to wear shoes they can walk in, but cute shoes. Oh, okay. We go for that.

And uh hands as well. Um, you know, especially with the end of life sessions where I think the bond does become more of a focus in the session. I'll have people like scritch their dog, show show them affection, the way that they always do, you know, if the dog likes belly rubs or ear scratches and Capture the hand. Sometimes the dog is in focus. The owner is just gazing lovingly. We tend to do naturally and somewhat out of focus.

But yeah, it's um with humans it It's I haven't done a full family with their dog. That kind of terrifies me, but a couple of people with their dog I do like to capture.

How would the elephant people shots out there? There's one with a small dog being held on a shoulder, you know, sort of looking over the back. Um location scouting. Uh do you walk around your days thinking, Oh, this would be a cool spot to put some dog in the future, that kind of stuff?'Cause'cause what I'm thinking about is you've got a great picture of a dog named Quincy standing in in this old world, old old city arch. Um, and the the setting and the dog match brilliantly.

Yeah, everywhere I go every day I'm sizing places up. And uh often it'll be like, Oh yeah, this spot's beautiful and it would look even better with a dog in it. But but but again, you know Setting for a chihuahua and a setting for an Irish wolfhound are gonna be very different. Yeah, you don't want to try photographing a chihuahua among the sunflowers.

Um y you kinda think about the colours of the dog. Like I I love when there are elements of nature that match the fur or the shape. You know, I had one little scraggly four pound dog on top of a straw bale the other day and there were bits of straw sticking out and bits of dog hair and there's all this it really kind of comes together. With that dog Quincy, so Quincy was a silken windhound and s just so elegant.

Very classy dog. So I took Quincy to the University of Toronto where they have all these these centuries old doorways and um we did some on the stairs and just the body shapes that Quincy makes as well. You know, we had some there was a a very ornate curved stone banister coming down the side of the the stairs and Quincy's body somehow mirrored that when he was standing parallel. So I look for Yeah, look for similarities between dogs and nature and architecture and try and throw it together.

Well and and you know, d I think this does go back to, you know, y your early life and walking around Scotland and stuff. You've got a brilliant understanding of natural light. Uh and y Scotland is is famous for the light changing every twelve and a half seconds. But that's gotta be really difficult. When when you've got such an animated subject in such a brief period of time, have you ever had a a shoot just n you know, environmentally go to hell?

I was in a blizzard once in Fogo Island and it was shooting? Yeah, it was snowing so hard and it was about minus fifteen and it was really windy and we were by the sea and the the waves were all foaming up and kind of angry and Um but the I had my labrador and his pal who was um some kind of a poodle mix. So they were really good in that weather and they wanted to keep going and my friend and I wanted to keep going and we just we got some really magical um active snow images. So

Yeah, nothing you know, uh nothing really stops me. I I wouldn't Maybe lightning wood. Okay. Good, good, good on that. Um but boy. Th that those blizzard shots sound magnificent. I I know how you're gonna answer this'cause we have talked before but but I want to hear hear you explain it. What happens when you get a dog that's just not a good dog, that that's a mean or afraid or or snarling? Um, have you ever had a shoot with a bad dog?

There's no such thing as a bad dog. I knew that's what you said. Okay, no, no, I I I I almost believe you, but come on. There there are dogs whose temperaments do not lend themselves to a photo session. Um, I had a dog who was a super good dog, uh very confident and well behaved, but who never really made friends with the camera and um so it was really challenging for us to get posed shots and in the end we, you know, pulled out the seventy to two hundred lens.

Try to get some more candid shots and not have the dog looking at me but you know, running back and forward in front of me as opposed to toward me. Um that was that was challenging, but we we made it work. Um I had a a dog that had been abused And again, this dog had like such a sweet personality. I I was a little bit in love with this dog. Um and I had been told at the start of the session about the dog's history, so I was being mindful not to get too close.

But then, you know, I kind of relaxed and we're in the moment and I was I went with my foot to trample down some long grasses that were blocking the dog's face and uh

the dog was triggered and so he he took a little bite out of my pants. But No, yeah, I was just thinking, I d I I met a friend of mine on the on the street here the other day was walking her dog. Um and a a new dog and she said, You know, just so you know, the dog's really uncomfortable around men with beards, which is me. Um and No, but but the answer to that of course is a long focal length. W wh what's the longest that you've ever used for shooting dogs?

That is actually my longest l lens, the seventy to two hundreds. Okay. Yeah. Do you do you wind up using that often? Yeah, it's a really popular lens for dog photographers. Uh you can get beautiful bokeh, you can adapt really quickly if the dog's running around, you can make quick changes. Recently I really got into my eighty five lens though and I'm I'm kind of trying to use more kind of static lenses and move myself around rather than rely on zooming. Prime lenses just the the crispness is

So gorgeous. It is. Y you know, Val, two things that that you would never expect to hear in the same conversation um would be dog photography and politics. And and and yet your life seems to have brought these together. Um so so so uh tell me the story of Molly. Yeah, so so Molly uh was a Russian wolf hound and um she ran for mayor in Toronto a couple of years ago.

to put a dog up for mayor? It was our owner, Toby Heaps. Uh Toby is a publisher of a a magazine called Carpet Knights and he promotes corporate uh responsibility and he's I think his family comes from politics and so he uh First he he thought he would just put Molly forward as a candidate and they he like rollerbladed in at the last minute to get her registered. And then um turns out dogs are not allowed to be the mayor of Toronto, so What a surprise.

So they became a a duo a joint candidate and he he ran and Molly was his running mate. Um and they asked me to do well not Molly didn't ask me. Toby asked me to do their um their campaign photos. Mm-hmm. Really fun. Oh man. Did they win? Um well they got six hundred votes, which is pretty impressive. Um they were there were there were a hundred and two a hundred and one or a hundred and two candidates.

And I'm pretty sure they were up in the top fifteen. So uh but um the because it that was something that was quite unusual about the camp um about the election is that so many people ran. So there was a lot of international press coverage of the election. And um I think that Toby and Marley had the best

Yeah, that yeah, I was gonna say there's a natural there. So BBC and The Guardian and some French newspapers and Spanish, they all ended up using my photos of Molly when they Did their Toronto politics coverage, which was really fun. People are listening to this and they're thinking, you know, okay, other than the business side, other than the bookkeeping and the accounting and all that, what what is the single biggest challenge of professional dog photography?

I'm always wanting to upgrade my equipment. That that's not unique to dog photography. No. We all want to do that. You just had that camera. This feature. Like yeah, for me personally that's a challenge, stopping myself from buying new lenses and cameras and just being disciplined about that.

Yeah, it's it's the speed. It's the fact that dogs are constantly moving and they don't understand English. So if you want them to turn their heads, you can't just tell them to do that the way you could a model. You have to you have to lure them or do something sneaky to get them to do it or just wait until they do it themselves. I you know, I told you about some of the tricks that I use, but there have been times uh one time I I photographed a dog called Nanaimo who had no eyes and

couldn't see, so I was trying to use some of my tricks and they they weren't working. Or I I bought a photographed a a senior dog who was seventeen years old and deaf and blind. and had pretty limited mobility. And so and and we do have shots from that session with eye contact and uh but you're just you're really grabbing split seconds. Um kind of to give the impression that it was totally

But the dog is giving this intense engagement. Yeah. I mean I mean some some of your portraits Look alm almost classical, al almost as if this dog has come in to be, you know, painted and is sitting still for hours and hours. Um it it it is really special and brilliant work.

Val, I'm impressed. I d you know, as a dog person myself, I look at this and I think this is fantastic. I as a photographer, I think this is something I'd I would aspire to and it would take me years to even approach what you've been able to achieve with these images. Thank you very much. I I have enjoyed this conversation. I think your work is fantastic. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Because excellent photographers. Belongs on paper. Visit us at www.readframes.com.