I had so many incredible sessions this past fall season, and I was so busy that I’m just finally sitting down to share them with you! This session took place in early October, when we still had so much beautiful green in the trees with just a hint of yellow starting to pop in. Madison wanted some images of her sweet Sydney, who is such a beautiful and sweet 11 year old pup. She’s a mix between a Golden Retriever and a Saint Bernard, making her gorgeous with some very unique features.
We did Sydney’s session at Bluff Point State Park in Groton, because it’s a place that Madison loves bringing her to play in the water. Sydney is definitely a water dog, and really was happiest once we let her play in the ocean!
Isn’t she just so beautiful? I’m obsessed with the beautiful white and spotted fur on her chest and her hints of white on her face and paws.
We captured lots of fun, playful images of Madison and Sydney playing together on our hike through the park and at the beach. These two are so cute together and Sydney is such a playful girl. Even though she’s starting to slow down a little at age 11, she definitely played like a puppy throughout our whole session.
Definitely my favorite image of the day. It ended up being Madison’s favorite too and it became the center image of her 5-image wall collection! (If you want to see the full collection I’m sharing it at the bottom of this post!)
Images like these make awesome album spreads because they show a cute series of playful images together. In fact, these images in this format are exactly one of the album spreads Madison chose and I love them so much! (Her album video is shared below as well so you can check it out)
This is definitely another of my favorites. Just a beautiful, classic portrait of a happy dog in her happy place :)
And sometimes when you try to take some more posed shots, you get a goofball dog who just wants to bark at her mom, which make for adorable images too!
Another favorite! There were so many beautiful ones from this session. This was actually the first time Sydney sat down since we arrived at the beach part of the park to finally give us a seated image! She just wanted to play too much. Even in this spot she only stayed like this for about 20 seconds. Being a dog photographer is basically all patience, patience, patience and then being very quick at the perfect moment.
Once we had a bunch of adorable portraits of Sydney alone and with Madison, we finally let her swim. When I do beach or lake sessions I typically try to get some portraits before letting the pup swim, so that if clients want photos with their dog (which I highly encourage) they don’t get soaked, plus then we have a few dry images of the dog alone! We all know how long it takes dogs to dry off, so I try to save swimming for later in the sessions.
I think she was trying to tell me to stop taking photos of her and throw the damn stick already.
I had Madison play casually with her and throw the stick so we could get some cute candids of them playing together.
It’s important for me to capture your dog’s personality, so I spend a lot of time at sessions just letting them play and be themselves. This usually means I’ll have my clients play with them and I’ll capture lots of candid images in the process. It also allows me to get some action shots as they’re running (or swimming!) back towards us.
Wait or maybe this is my favorite image? Since I make the rules here I’m saying it’s totally fine to have 10 favorites. There’s never a need to pick just one!
I love a good shake-shot image series! Whenever I do swimming sessions, these are a MUST. They are so funny and make perfect album spreads. Plus, most of my clients have never seen a still shot of their dog’s face mid-shake and they are hilarious.
A few more action photos before we ended our session. Sydney would’ve kept swimming all day if we’d let her.
One final shot and then she was done. We definitely exhausted this girl between the hike and all the swimming. I think it’s safe to say she was living her best life that day :)
Thank you so much Madison, for trusting me to capture these precious memories of you and your sweet girl. I had SOOOO much fun with the two of you!
Heirloom Artwork
This set of 5 canvases is quickly becoming my most popular client wall collection. It’s so hard to pick just one favorite (obviously I have this problem too), so choosing this collection, plus an album, means you don’t have to! Madison chose her 5 favorite images to turn into canvases for her home. At her Viewing Session I helped her narrow down her favorites and then used a special pro software to show her various options with different images to see what she liked best. I typically spend a couple hours with each client at this Viewing Session to make sure their wall collections and album designs are perfect. I want you to LOVE your heirlooms because they are made to last forever! This album cover is the “Sand” linen and perfectly compliments our beach session.
Here’s a little video to show you what’s inside her album if you’d like to see how I typically design them. Every one is customized to best tell the story of you and your dog, and I work with each client to make sure they love every single spread and the overall story the album tells. This one is filled with so much cuteness!
Do you have questions about albums, artwork, my photography experience or how to get started with booking your own session? Contact me today and let’s chat about your dogs and how I can help you capture them in photographs and heirloom artwork that you can cherish forever.
