Dog portraits on the beach

So here on Cape Cod, we don't just photograph high school seniors, families and children on the beach, we also photograph the beloved dogs of our clients. I adore dogs. I think if I were to live alone I'd be a crazy dog woman for sure!!! Probably have masses of them running around! Lucky I guess, that that's not the case!!!

Mugsi is an 11 year old Boxer, who came along for the family session the other night at West Dennis beach. She was so sweet and beautiful, happy to be on the beach, and happier to be with the family she obviously adores!

Photographing dogs

I love photographing dogs as well as children and families, and it's funny, I like quiet expressions on my dogs too! Quiet expressions are still, calm faces, not crazy smiley, not sad or too serious, just somewhere in between. Eyes pop, and faces are at their most beautiful. I love this image of Lucy, it was snowing, and I thought it was appropriate to have a photo of her in the snow and was going to take her somewhere, but as she sat looking at me through our fence, I couldn't resist, and it turns out I adore this one...

I'd love to photograph your dog too, just give me a call!

finally the puppies

I photographed the puppies ages ago, photographed hundreds of portraits between now & then... guess life just gets away from me...

Photographing lab puppies is such a fun job, they are just like 18 month olds, wild & crazy and every one is doing something different and going a different direction. If you know me, you know I laugh a fair amount of the time (quite loudly usually, and sometimes uncontrollably!), but oh my gosh do I laugh when the puppies are here! They are about the cutest things ever, makes me a little broody for a puppy & then those sharp little teeth & weeing everywhere remind me I'm probably good with the beautiful 4 year old, Lucy!

This litter was really funny, they were all different shapes and sizes, from teensy tiny to fairly robust & chunky, glad I didn't have to choose one of them, they all had endearing qualities! The breeder, Kim, has such good bloodlines in her dogs, they're all AKC pups, wicked healthy, no wonder they're all gone before I even get to meet them! By the time we're done with the session, they're all tuckered out, and can hardly keep their eyes open, sleeping puppies (especially the one who insisted on sleeping on top of his sibling! are so the best!)

How I adore the puppies!

the puppies are coming!

The puppies are coming! (probably) my favorite portrait sessions of all time are the puppies... they are wild and crazy and loud and silly and laugh out loud-y, just these amazing sessions that are true joy...

Kim & her family have been breeding labs for years, they are the best dogs, truly fabulous... I should know... I've got one...

Lucy just turned four, this is her first portrait taken by me, and one I took for our Christmas cards last year... which puppy do you think is Lucy in the group portrait? (follow me @Studiobysea for more puppy updates).

more pups to come while I'm waiting for the pups!! but if you can't wait...

vacation

Off for a couple of weeks - ah vacation... other people go skiing or lovely warm climes... me, we go to England... just as cold... wetter... damper... oh well!

So I wish you all love for Valentines (one of my three Valentines in the photo, Lucy, the one I won't be sharing the day with...), happy school vacation week, enjoy...

Year-end slideshows when I'm back...

(oh how I love Lucy! isn't she gorgeous? I think everyone should have beautiful portraits of their dogs!!)

Happy Christmas!

We wish you all a very merry Christmas, and a wonderful 2009! When we took Lucy for a walk down the beach tonight, it was one of those magical evenings when I realize how unbelievably lucky we are to live here... Adriana & I were singing Rudolph, and we realized it was indeed a "foggy, Christmas eve"! and when we got to the beach, the ocean wasn't moving - at all - no motion, no sound, a little icy, surrounded by fog... it was amazing... we had to run home to get the camera but the sun had already set on the day... I share with you the beauty that surrounds me every day... God bless you and your families. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

butterflies

walking Lucy this morning on Seagull Beach, I saw a beautiful Monarch butterfly. He was feeding on the Seaside Goldenrod to build his strength for the long journey to Mexico... He was bright and beautiful, and such a lovely start to the day... and then I saw a brilliant, yellow butterfly, and was mesmerized for the instant he allowed me to be, before zipping off on his way...

I looked in my Butterflies Across Cape Cod book, by Mark Mello and Tor Hansen, (which I got at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History by the way) and found that I had seen a Cloudless Sulphur, fantastic!!!

*disclaimer - I use the word 'he' in the most innocuous sense of the word, they may have been she's... and I found the photo on Wikipedia from the St. Louis Zoo, so thanks for the great image! I was without camera this morning, but would have been without a photo even if I hadn't been!!!

sea dog

Lucy is now officially a sea dog... of course she may have had her one and only sea adventure if it's up to Ray!!! We took her out clamming this morning, out in Barnstable Harbour... We took the boat (aka floating bathtub) out to the sandbars to get steamers... Adriana and I had a fabulous time (we usually do), Ray maybe not so much, and Lucy loved it for a while... after traveling around the sand bars to find the channel, Lucy decided she'd had enough of being constantly told to sit, and took a dive off the boat. Of course, although she swims regularly, she's never not been able to touch bottom before, so needless to say, she got a bit freaked out... (my friend Jennifer, and her boyfriend Tom had been talking recently about their lab's life jacket... guess we'll be getting one soon...) Well, poor Ray, who I think he was just being nice inviting us along to clam with him, got way more than he bargained for, way, way more... so now he's got this scared dog, a scared wife, a scared daughter, so he did what any good husband/father/dog owner would do, he used his super hero strength, grabbed my beautiful dog by her collar and lifted her into the boat (deep sigh) Lucy's 70 lbs, so soaking wet... well, let's just say. heavy... what a fab guy I married...

There was a point out there today, we were portaging across a sandbar, and I looked around at where we were and thought (for about the millionth time) how lucky we are... The Cape is so amazing... Looking out across Sandy Neck with it's beautiful dunes, not a soul in sight, it's the stuff that makes life great...

oh and dinner, it was yummy...

gifts from the sea

I am very aware of gifts from the sea... My very livelyhood depends upon those gifts, of course I get the best gift of all, being able to take portraits on the beach... A family portrait, or high school senior portrait taken with a background of beach grass, sand dunes, the ocean, I'd say those are pretty amazing gifts! But I appreciate the little gifts as well, most days I walk Lucy along one of my local beaches, and I usually come home with my pockets bulging with rock, shells, wampum, driftwood, to be tumbled, or added to a collage, or just appreciated for their beauty. Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote 'Gifts from the Sea', a kind of spiritual compass for us to follow, some of us live the journey everyday, and that in itself is a gift from the sea...

Sometimes, the gifts are not easily overlooked, on Saturday morning, Lucy was less than pleased because she had to be put on a leash, and Adriana was a little nervous, but I was breathless at the lovely Harbour Seal basking in the fickle sunshine, just relaxing on the shore... How I love the sea... How I love Cape Cod...

Don Quixote

...the day before the big snowstorm, Lewis Bay certainly exemplified the calm before the storm, the ocean was like glass, perfectly still (except when Lucy went for splashing, crazy, wild romps through it!), amazingly calm. And then the snow came, and it returned to normal, covered with snow, but normal! Returning home, there was this large snowball at the end of someone's driveway where it had been plowed. Lucy stopped about 100 yards from it and started barking ferociously (well, as ferocious as a black lab gets!), I couldn't get her anyway near it, she was barking like mad. All I could think of was Don Quixote & the windmills, "en garde big ball of snow..."

beauty

sometimes the beauty that is all around me everyday takes my breath away...

Today I was walking Lucy along the beach, it was foggy and cool (and I didn't have my camera!). There was a six or seven foot strip of beach from the edge of the sea that was absolutely flat & smooth. There were no stones or shells or normal beach things, the sand was like an empty journal page waiting to be written on. It ended at this gorgeous marbelized strip of sand, tans & grays & blacks marbelized by the waves & sea... It was so peaceful and beautiful.

When I went back, merely an hour later, the tide had come in, the smooth path I had followed earlier was taken back by the sea, the sun broke free through the fog, and I was reminded how quickly it all can change...

Happy Birthday Ray, we love you & wish you peace & happiness for today and through-out the year... xxx

I Love Lucy

the other night I turned the tv on, and on the program guide there were three episodes of I Love Lucy on in a row, so the screen read "I Love Lucy, I Love Lucy, I Love Lucy", and I thought to myself, "yeah, I really do..." Lucy is our black lab. She's so delightful, though walking her in the dark tonight with no streetlights and coyotes howling was less than delightful... it was quite the speedy walk!

wait till you hear about my wedding coming up on Saturday... anyone have any good dog stories to share?