Pet Portraits

“Can you put the dogs on the table?” I say to the little old lady who looks like The Queen with her Corgis.

“No, they might fall.” She says. “They’ll just sit on the floor by my feet.”

“They won’t be in the Book that way.” I say.

“They are my children, I want them in the Book.”

I end up taking a few shots of the Little Old Lady by herself for the Book and a few shots of her with the dogs at her feet.  She refuses to take any other shots by herself but she would like a couple of the dogs by themselves.  We arrange the dogs and I get their attention with a squeaky toy.  They look up at me with that surprised and eager look that dogs get when they hear a ball-I snap the picture.

People bring their pets to have their portraits taken with them, the pet is almost always a dog, sometimes more than one dog.  I’ve seen one or two very unhappy cats and that’s about it.  People tell me they like to have portraits taken with their horses, but that’s kind of a tough shot to pull off when I shooting in a 10×12 room filled with photo equipment.  I’m thinking I may have photographed a parrot once, but that’s about it.  No hamsters, gerbils, turtles, hedgehogs, or goldfish.  Pet portraits are pretty much exclusively dog portraits-at least in my experience.

I was working with 2 passer and they were deciding who should go first-The First Passer told the Second Passer she could start.  Then a couple dressed in their best western outfits walked in with two small dogs.  I was able to pose the dogs on the table and get them to look in the right direction. I took portraits of the couple with the dogs, without the dogs, and the dogs by themselves.

The Second Passer took them into her room and the next customer walked in.  He was a bald old man wearing a t-shirt with holes in it.  The First Passer looked at him and said:”Yup. She gets the cute family with the dogs and I get the homeless guy.”

The couple with dogs bought big and the man in the t-shirt was a Nonbuyer.

The Couple had two thinhgs going for them, they had dogs and they were wearing Cowboy Hats-as a general rule if someone comes in with either of those they will buy-and this couple had a shopping list ready when they sat down at the Sales Table.  You can’t always tell when someone will be a Buyer, but the odds are pretty good that the Homeless Guys won’t buy much.  Howard Hughes not withstanding.

Not all people who bring in dogs are buyers, some of them are just total and compelete nutjobs who insist that their dog is their child.  These people are just downright creepy.  They like to kiss their dogs on the mouth and share food with them.  They talk to them as if they actually expect the dog to speak back to them.

As a general rule these are small dogs with no chance of getting away and live the captive life of Tinkerbell in Paris’s pink Prada purse.  I shoot these mad women, and it is always a woman, as quickly as I can and send them on there way.  They usually refuse to take any portraits by themselves, as this might hurt their baby‘s feelings. Shudder.

When men bring in dogs these are usually Real Dogs-Rottweilers, Doberman Pinchers, Pit Bulls, German Shepherds.  These are often work dogs, I took several portraits of Military Dogs when I did the yearbook of a Military Academy.  I always let the family pose these dogs, as I grew up watching movies about gangs of killer Dobermans.  These dogs almost always do very well. The MP doesn’t want his Attack Dog to smile, so just getting them into the correct position is usually good enough to get the sale.

Maybe the Little Old Ladies are not completely mad, but just lonely.  Or maybe they like that look of disgust that crosses most people’s face when they talk about their pets with worshipful respect and adoration.

I don’t have portraits of my own pets from days gone by, and I kind of regret that.  Oh I can see my dogs and cats well enough in my mind’s eye-and even that turtle and the small string of gold fish. I even had a parakeet once up a time.  It never occurred to me to have their portraits taken.

I have never done a full Shoot that was Pet Portraits.  I was going to work at a Pet Store once, but something happened and the deal fell through.  It can be a challenge, but it is usually fun.  Think about having a portrait taken with you pet, it’s not as bad as it sounds.