This Fine Art Dog Photography Session in San Francisco was so much fun. I love photographing the family dog, especially in a family like this with three wonderful and bright kids. Because the family dog is not just a dog in their world- it is another sibling. Emma the Boston Terrier gets to spend her days playing with three young humans, sleeps in the bed of her favorite human every night (I won't tell who it is), and brings so much joy to everyone in this home. This is why I believe in photographing in my clients' homes, and never photographing in a studio. Homes are filled from floor to ceiling with stories, and love, and history, and scratches and natural light and texture and that old sofa the dog likes to sleep on and the wrinkled area rug that was passed down from your parents and that spot in the yard where the kids played when they were little. Photographs are a mode of storytelling, and when you do not give your clients the opportunity to tell their stories, you are doing everyone a real disservice. In order to be a photographer, I believe you must take on the responsability of truly getting to know your clients, their kids, their animals, their homes, their jobs, and everything that surrounds their lives. Now, you can't know it all but you must make an effort to do so. So that when you show up at the front door for your Photography Session, your clients trust that you will tell their story in the best way possible. And that back at the studio during their Presentation, they will be ready to invest in hand-made archival photographs that are not only beautiful, but tiny moments in time that will serve as keepsakes for a family whose kids and animals are growing up and changing every day. These San Francisco dog portraits are a great example of that approach. It was such a fun and special session.

Photographing the Family Dog