Dogs of Christmas (Out Takes)

I had a huge list of holiday cards to send out this year, and since the majority of them were going to professional photographer colleagues I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't shoot something myself for it. (Out of the many beautiful cards I've received the majority of the photographers did shoot one or more things themselves for it).

At first I tried to line up 12 dogs, as I was going to do the 12 Dogs of Christmas. These were going to be 12 different breeds each with a different oranment or Christmasy things. After one of the more challenging sessions a friend asked if I had been trying to get the dogs to act out the 12 Days of Christmas song. That sounded like a cute idea, for about a second, as it was I'm glad my friend didn't suggest that to me first, or else I might have tried with the first few dogs.

I learned that dogs do not often like posing with such items. Many of the dogs, in fact, do not like sitting/standing still at all. I can relate.

As the holiday season grew closer I realized I would be sending out quite a few cards also to people celebrating a holiday other than Christmas. Also I decided to put out postcards instead of the double sided cards I'd origninally envisioned. The total list was over 300 for me this year, I'm so glad I chose not to seal and stuff that many. So I no longer needed as many subjects (nor could I fit them all in one card.)

Tomorrow I will post the final card. In the meantime, here are three additional dogs I photographed. Thanks to everyone who let me into their homes and most of all to the dogs for being great models though they will never know why I was approaching them with strange objects and having them pose with them.




As an aside, each dog was given a safe, non-themed toy afterwards for being a good sport.