BARKography

View Original

Photographing White Dogs

This is a blog circle post. When we all are spending more time online, why not look at more cute dog photos, right? Click the link at the bottom of this post and you’ll go through the circle and get to see other dog photographer’s blogs about our topic this week which is white.

When I think of white, two things immediately come to mind: an adorable white pitbull named Sugar that I photographed last year and shooting on a white background.

I wish I could say “snow” comes to mind but living in Charlotte NC, sadly that’s not going to happen. Sorry Angela (who is in the blog circle and I know she wants to see some snow photos.)

So since I don’t love shooting on white backgrounds, this post is all about Sugar. I loved photographing her.

I’m sure other photographers will blog about shooting in a studio on a white background and I’ll be excited to see their posts and photos. For the non-photographers reading this, shooting on a white background is hard because it’s hard to make the white look white. Often times it looks more grey and requires quite a bit of editing to make it look white. Making it white requires multiple lights positioned correctly and ideally a big space.

So I chose photographing white dogs as my topic or specifically photographing Sugar.

I put out a model call over the summer for a commercial photography shoot. When I’m photographing dogs for the first time in the studio, I never really know what I’m going to be able to capture.

Some dogs can be afraid or fearful in the studio even when we take our time and are really patient. It’s a confined space and there are big lights that go off whenever I take a photo so it can be scary to a dog.

Then I met Sugar. She was awesome and I was able to create some images of her that my commercial client and her parents love.

On another note, I may be photographing more white dogs in my future…. one of my own. #fingerscrossed

The next time we are searching for a new family member, my husband wants a white lab. We currently have Moose, the chocolate lab and Molly who is really dark brown / black. When we got Moose 6 years ago, my husband suggested a white or yellow lab. I’ve always been resistant to another yellow or white lab.

We’ve had two yellow labs: Sam and Willow.

Want to know why I’ve stayed away from another white lab? The answer is because I prefer shedding in dark colors. It doesn’t show up in my house and on my clothes as much and labs are going to shed.

However, after photographing Sugar I told him, let’s look for a white lab next time. #truestory

We aren’t really actively looking now. Occasionally I pop online and check out a few lab breeders to see if they’re looking to rehome any of their adult dogs. White labs don’t show up frequently at rescues although Lucky Labs Rescue in NC just took in a 10 year old white lab. We got Molly from them so yes, I did reach out when I saw the photo of “Buster.”

I would prefer a male to a female and that makes it even harder because most breeders are going to have retiring females.

Once we are ready to adopt, we have to see what’s available and finding an older white lab may be hard. Getting a puppy is not an option. I did that once… when I was much, much younger. Never again. LOL Having my own puppy to photograph would be a blast but the potty training, biting stage and high energy craziness isn’t what we want.

Until then, here are more photos of adorable, rescued, white pitbull Sugar. Isn’t she fabulous? Can you see why I decided after photographing her that I’d love to have a white dog?

To go to the next blog post, click this link: Pet Love Photography, serving Greater Cincinnati, the San Francisco Bay Area, and destinations nationwide. Click link at the bottom of each post and you’ll go around the circle.

Happy reading!