In college, I had a roommate who had a fish that looked like Richard Nixon. The fish always looked this way but dogs are a lot more expressive. I stopped by the plush and comfortable pet hotel, Petz Plaza, yesterday to see my friend Michael Hackett. The plan was to find some shots to put up in their lobby. Michael and his wife Jacelyn have a dog and two cats; after some discussion we decided to shoot separate portraits of the family pets and use those.
We will do most of the photography next week, but I had my camera along so we parked their pup in a little spot of shade and got a few test shots. As mentioned above, sometimes animals remind us of people. The fish really did look like Nixon, but one of the expressions this dog gave me reminded me of Marlon Brandon in The Godfather. The question now is, how am I going to get the cats to sit on a studio backdrop?
Looks like I need to make room in my camera bag for a squeaky toy and some cat nip.