Clothing and cute pets are two subjects that have big followings online. Combine them, and you’ve got yourself something viral. Dave Fung and Yena Kim of New York City have brewed up a fun photo project that’s quickly gaining a lot of attention. It’s called Menswear Dog, and is what you might get if you combined The Sartorialist with a dog blog.
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LaNola Kathleen Stone is a New York City-based professional photographer and dog lover who uses her talents and free time for a very heartwarming cause: Stone visits the dog pound near her home and specifically asks to shoot portraits of the dogs that are the “least likely to be adopted”, some of which have been there for over half a year and are likely in danger of being put down.
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People often say that, for whatever reason, dogs often look like their owners. 27-year-old Swiss photographer Sebastian Magnani has been attracting a good deal of worldwide attention lately for his photo project that takes that idea to the next level. Titled Underdogs, the series of photos features portraits showing dog faces carefully Photoshopped onto the bodies of their owners.
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Pet photographer Seth Casteel of LittleFriendsPhoto captures hilarious underwater portraits of dogs as they jump into a swimming pool to fetch balls and toys.
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Back in June we shared a cool (and nauseating) video of some guys throwing around a GoPro camera attached to a stick. YouTube user Lorduss1 recently did something similar… except with his dog. He mounted a GoPro camera to a stick, gave it to his dog, and then chased the dog around the yard.

Back in September we shared the story of Teresa Berg, a photographer who volunteers her time to take professional quality adoption photos for dogs in shelters. Sadly, similar efforts to save dogs through photography aren’t always encouraged. A woman named Emily Tanen was fired from Animal Care and Control of New York City back in May for her photos of dogs scheduled to be euthanized. Her crime? Violating the group’s strict photo policy, which includes a rule prohibiting showing humans in photos. The New York Times writes,

When she started working at Care and Control, Ms. Tanen said, she believed that the animals were photographed poorly and that the images failed to convey the warmth of a potential pet.

With her art background from her studies, Ms. Tanen decided she could do a better job with her $1,500 Nikon.

[...] Ms. Tanen said she tried to comply with the rules, but sometimes felt her judgment trumped her superiors’. She continued to show people’s hands touching a dog, even after receiving a warning against doing so. “I think they just didn’t want photos of animals that they were about to kill looking cute and adoptable and happy with people, but they said it was because their research showed that photos with people didn’t encourage people to adopt,” she said.

You can see some more of Tanen’s photographs here (be warned: they show humans).

Fired From a Shelter After Photographing the Animals (via Gizmodo)

How’s this for a unique pet photograph? Angelo DeSantis of Berkeley, CA was photographing his cat Dexter with a Canon 5D Mark II when he snapped this once-in-a-lifetime shot that appears to show Dexter throwing a mouse. It pays to have a fast shutter finger.

(via Colossal)

In this video, photographer Julie Johnson offers some helpful tips and tricks for photographing pets. For example: to get your dog’s attention and its ears to perk up, ask it some questions.

(via Fstoppers)

Check out this Humunga Stache dog toy — it’s a rubber ball toy that adds some culture to photos of your dog by giving it a massive mustache. They cost $10 each over on Amazon.

Humunga Stache (via Laughing Squid)

P.S. According to customer reviews, the toy apparently isn’t very durable — even more of a reason to use it as a photo prop rather than a dog toy.

Real estate agents make it a point to have homes look attractive in photographs, knowing that good photography can make a huge difference, but the people at animal rescue shelters often settle for second-rate photographs of the dogs they’re trying to find homes for. Professional pet photographer Teresa Berg of Dallas, Texas realized that countless dogs are likely euthanized each year simply due to bad photography, and decided to make a difference. Several years ago she started doing shoots for a pet shelter free of charge, and helped increase the adoption rates there by 100%
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