Rescue Dog Photography
Dog portraits are something I really love shooting.
These two are my dogs, Jane on the left I got as a puppy not long after I arrived in South Africa and Jeremy is the little SPCA dog who was a catalyst for my journey into rescue dog photography.
I shot these images of the pair of them together a couple of days after I adopted Jeremy and at this point, Jane hadn't totally warmed up to the idea of having him around. He loved her from the start.
I adopted Jeremy from Sandton SPCA on Valentine's Day 2011 so his 7th 'gotcha' day is coming up very soon. He was estimated to be 6 years old when I got him which puts him at a minimum of 13 now, although I suspect he is far older. The time I've had with him since seems to have flown by and he's now a very elderly gent.
The image on the left was shot in February 2011 and the image on the right was shot in September 2014. You can see how much he's aged between the photos. He'd started to develop cataracts in the second photo, which resulted in his eyes being removed in September last year. The photo of him wearing his bow tie is my favourite picture of him, it sums him up perfectly; proud, gentlemanly and very handsome. It's also interesting to see how much my photography has improved!
It didn't take long until Jeremy and Jane became firm friends and they would often lie together like this. That was until the arrival of the rest of my rescue dog collection which ended their intimate relationship when two became three with the arrival of Dora and three became four................and the rest is history.
Jeremy even featured on a birthday card.
I had this image taken just before Jeremy went in for surgery to remove his eyes after he developed glaucoma. I haven't actually taken any pictures of him since. He looks very strange without his eyes, so I'm very happy that I got the lovely bow tie picture so I can remember him at his finest. My only regret is that I didn't take more photos of him and that I didn't get any professionally taken pictures of him and I before he really got old. I can't really recall what he was like in his prime, aside from when I see pictures. He bumbles around now in his blind, deaf and very elderly state which is not how I want to remember him.
Jane is now 8 and a half and also looking very grey, she's long overdue some portraits (thankfully she has been well photographed over the years). My Irish Grandad used to refer to time as the enemy which I think is very apt when it comes to dogs, you blink and they've aged. Take lots of photos, it's the only way to counter the enemy.