The Eyes that Tell Stories
Wow what a great audience and feedback I got from last week's post! My most humblest thanks to you all. I'm so happy to hear that many of you have thought about sustainability with their dogs. It's heartwarming! Today I will continue with the dog theme but from a completely different point of view. During the passing week I have been taking photos of our doggies so I got an idea that I could write a post about photographing dogs. From my own perspective. For me dog photography is purely a hobby and a way to spend time with our dogs and sometimes our friends‘ dogs. Professional dog photography and photographers that do it for living are on a completely different level than me and I’m not even trying to reach that. I give all my respect and shoutout to them!
"It's definitely a way to get more deeper into their souls and thoughts."
Moments framed within art
For me, photographing dogs is very meditative. It's not a very easy thing to do as most of our dogs are impatient models and fast with their movements; you have to have the dog's trust to be able to work with them on this. But it's definitely a way to get a deeper view of their souls and thoughts. That's why I like to concentrate on capturing details and emotions. By details I mean close ups; the eyes and the fur create an extraordinary feeling and give dimensions to the picture. Dogs' eyes are breathtaking with all the different variations and the countless colors that their fur can be. Moreover, by emotions I mean the whole combination of the glance of a dog and the body positions, those brief moments when the dogs express themselves in the most rawest way. Most of the times those moments are difficult to witness with bare eye as they might happen in a blink of an eye but a with a fast shutter speed you can capture the most precious seconds of their lives.
I like photographing the dogs in their most natural environment without any specific structured set ups or planning. And I think I prefer wintery backgrounds because, well our dogs are more clean when there's snow but also because the white gives the subject itself more space and a chance to be highlighted. For example darker coloured dogs are extremely difficult and almost annoying to photograph in a vibrant forest since they kinda disappear. Of course it depends a lot on the subject and the environment but at least in my case I like snow more. But yeah, Jussi's Finnish spitz Lumo, who lives at his parents house, is a really good model in green forest backgrounds. He's one of my favourite dogs to photograph!
Usually the detailed photos I take have much more artistic touch in them and I like that a lot. When I take photos just for fun I don't have to follow any rules of photography or any concept or some wanted outcome. I can create something with freedom and it feels good and inspiring. Of course, maybe half of the photos of my memory card end up being more documentary and frozen moments but it's also important because I want to have pictures of the dogs from every chapter of their life and age. And the fun part of photographing dogs is when you import the photos to your computer and start going them through. You never know what kind of hilarious captures you have accidentally managed to get. I think the overall adjective that describes my dog photography is ‘random’ but that’s the way a relaxing hobby should be!
What's next?
If you are interested in my previous photography work with dogs I have a gallery on my professional website. Looks like I have’t updated it for a while but there is also a little story of my photography exhibition that I had few years ago. The idea was to capture the souls that reflect back from the dogs eyes. I’ll leave a link here http://www.inkasalmirinne.com/huskies-my-children.
Next week still remains a mystery but we have an exciting steps on our new home journey ahead! Things are finally moving forward so maybe I could open that up a little bit!
Life is the best, enjoy!
xx, Inka
