Heartwarming Portraits of Pets and Their Loving Owners

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Need a pick-me-up? Check out the project “Your Pet and You” by photographer Tobias Lang of Hamburg, Germany. The series is composed of beautiful portraits of all kinds of pets and their loving owners.

Lang has issued an open call for pets, inviting any pet owners who would like to participate to pay a visit to his studio. As a result, the project has a good deal of diversity. Sure, an overwhelming majority of the photographs are of dogs and cats, but you’ll also find rather exotic pets sprinkled in as well.

There are owls, snakes, lizards, tarantulas, turtles, ferrets, and more.

The project started one evening when Lang noticed his roommate’s cat sitting atop a block of wood. He decided to turn this simple “pedestal” and use it as a setting for animal portraits. The next day he photographed his friend and his friend’s pet dog, and the project was born.

Lang continued to incorporate the wooden block into his images, and the project began to take shape as more people volunteered themselves and their companions.

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Okay, okay... this one isn't exactly a "pet"
Okay, okay… this one isn’t exactly a “pet”

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Lang says he’s still looking for other pets that aren’t in his collection yet, including piglets, goldfish, meerkats, parrots, geese, chickens, and anything that’s not a typical pet. “Every animal that can sit or stand on the wooden block is welcome,” Lang says. The block measures about one square foot on top, so “it’s not possible to photograph horses.” In all, Lang hopes to photograph 200 pets and their owners.

He’s also planning to publish a book containing the portraits, and is trying to raise funds through his website in order to do so. You can find all the portraits Lang has captured so far over on the project’s website.


Image credits: Photographs by Tobias Lang and used with permission

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