Welcome to Week 12 of the Pet Photography 52 Weeks Project.  This week’s theme is “Portrait”.

Getting to the soul of it

My primary life calling is to take beautiful portraits of animals in need and animals who are loved and cherished by their families. The former I have been doing since September 2011 when I first stepped foot into one of Sydney’s biggest pounds. My goal was to capture their beauty, personality and soul so I could show the world how amazing they are and hopefully attract their perfect person to adopt them. Just like Arcadia here who has just been adopted at the Sutherland Shire Council Animal Shelter where I now volunteer a day a week to help their animals find forever home.

“Paint me like one of your French girls”

The latter is how I make a living… taking photographs and creating beautiful artwork of the pets of people who consider these pets as their family .

Capturing the tail end of life

Just like Molly here, who sadly passed away on Monday, just 9 days after this photograph was taken. Molly was rescued back in 2008 and has been a cherished matriarch of her family, including her three fur-siblings. Molly’s Mum contacted me as she was aware that time was slipping by and she may not have Molly in her world much longer. Thank heavens she reached out and I was able to book her in a few days later due to the urgency of the situation. We spent a wonderful afternoon together at her home and I’ll be meeting up again next weekend to show all the beautiful memories from the session. No doubt there will be many tears flowing, but at least now they will be able to have amazing artwork including a stunning book full of Molly’s photos and the rest of the family.

A portrait of beautiful Molly

Three little farm dogs

After a long three month wait, we finally took ownership of our farm on Monday. As I write this blog on Friday morning, we are getting ready to clean up and head back to the rat race of the city of Sydney! We’ve had the most amazing week here and we love this place so much more than we could ever have imagined. We’ve worked the gardens and the house, putting in our own personal touches and it’s already feeling like home. It will be home when we eventually move here permanently in the Spring… and today, well we don’t want to leave!

Our #3DogKateers have had an amazing week too… I’m not sure if they think it’s just another holiday house or if they realise this is our new home, but I do know they are loving it here.  Daisy is a true farm dog… she is in her element racing around from dawn to dusk just coming in occasionally for a drink and a snooze.  Luna and Harvey are the more gentrified house dogs. They enjoy a wander around the garden and up to visit Daddy in the shed, but they enjoy the verandah most, watching over the land from above.

Late yesterday afternoon I downed tools and grabbed my camera and some cheese (all I had!) and took these portraits in one of the paddocks. I can’t wait to really explore our land with the dogs and my camera when we are up here next over Easter.

Thank you for reading, I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s topic in our blog circle.  Please head on over to check out Pawparazzi Pet and Animal Photography presented by Shae Pepper Photography. for Shae’s take on this topic, and continue clicking the link at the bottom of each post until you end up right back here.

Teeny Tiny Dogs and their Stories is here! Stay tuned to my Facebook and Instagram accounts for sneak peeks!

Next weekend I’m off to further develop my photography skills in Queenstown New Zealand at #BarkZealand with some of the best dog photographers in the world so I can’t wait to share updates, and I’ll hopefully have time to keep up with the blog circle that week

If you would like to book a photography session for your dog please get in touch as I’d love to meet you and will make time in my schedule for you.  If you want to join the pack and be kept up to date with the latest news, please sign up here.