A Day in the Life of 'The Dogist,' Pet Photographer Extraordinaire | Short Film Showcase
Oh, there's nothing really crazy bad. I walk around and they may take a foot of your dog. I take a photo of your dog. I take a photo of your dog, say, "Okay, okay, good luck trying to get his photo."
Sit! Squeak toy comes out. I start making a weird noise. One second later, the dog is posing like a professional. Very nice! Gonna give you a card. I take photos of dogs. Oh, your dog is she! I ask people sometimes, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do? With all the money, I'd probably travel with my camera in hand with dogs.
I'm doing it! In the beginning of the project, no one knew who I was. I was just walking around every day and having these interactions with dogs. It made me feel good about being sort of unemployed; just, you know, screw people! I just want to handle the dogs.
But as the project has grown, everything I've become, this sort of figure. So here, get the image queued up, got the caption, and host. At this point, it's 500 likes per minute, something like that. There's a lot of activity; it's still baffling to me how many people like each of these photos I put out. I haven't done any outreach, I haven't paid for any advertising; it's something people want and need.
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Oh, very nice! Georgia, come! A Boston Terrier, kind of six months old, it's a beautiful sight for dog photographer. New York is a special place to be a documentary street fighter. I can't really imagine doing this blog anywhere else. Every night, the city has its canine personalities in each of the neighborhoods.
I would shoot downtown. Weekends are the best because you get owners walking their dogs during the day versus the walkers with five of the dogs. Such a park has great dogs; that free sign is a lot of poodle exotic breeds. Brooklyn has more pit bulls. Cut it out! Any time doesn't have any dogs.
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There's a lot of visual noise given that tree context. What are you three? But I shoot pretty shallow depth-of-field. I like to isolate this sort of moment in time for this dog in its life. The dog, they're not posing for a picture; they're sitting for the ball, or sitting to the tree. It's my challenge to make them seem like there's something dramatic happening.
I guess what it is, is personifying the dog and making them seem like a person. That's where, to me, the humor is. I don't feature their faces, but when there's something interesting about the owners, I like to shoot a little wider and include their lower half because it's a lot to glean from that relationship. Who are these guys?
Hopefully, you're doing it. So, thank you everyone about you! Awesome! I think we gotta get one. I don't have a dog right now. You know how the girlfriend... I don't work with people in the same way that most people do, and I sometimes feel that sort of loneliness.
I come home and I'm like talking to my rug, but I do connect with people through their dogs. I think, you know, don't my own dog? Dogs have opened up a whole world for me that's made me less lonely. I think I should have just an innate human emotion to want to love and to want to give to... and dogs have that in abundance.
I've only been doing this for two years, but I do feel more so spiritually aligned. Dogs don't need that much to be happy; they need food and love, right? That's something I've always aspired to do, is to take a page out of their book: become more simple in the way I look at the world.
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