Is it the lip?



For more funny dog photos go here.

Labels: cowbelly pet photography, fergie, funny dog photos, little lip

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This morning I joined Brandie Ahlgren (CityDog Magazine editor extraordinaire), Bev Sparks, and Emily Rieman for a tour of the space where our art show will be held next week.

I am getting really excited. The space is going to take a little bit of work (it's the old Fenix Underground space), but I can't wait to see it done- it's going to be awesome. No, beyond awesome- spectacular! We just need to do a little bit of cleaning, throw up some white Christmas lights, mix in some colorful art and beautiful photography and we'll have ourselves a show.

IMHO this will be a groundbreaking event- featuring 8 of some of the best Seattle dog photographers and artists under one roof at the same time, in a neighborhood renowned for its (non-dog) fine art. The only other place I can think of that this has taken place is at the Dogs Gallery in California. Hopefully this is just the beginning! (Now if we could just get the Chelsea folks to follow in our lead...)

And now the official blurb:

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What: Join CityDog Magazine and the Pioneer Square Community Association for the first-ever dog friendly art walk as part of the First Thursday Art Walk in Pioneer Square.

Be sure to check out the CityDog-hosted, one-night-only art exhibit showcasing the fabulous works of some of Seattle's finest dog photographers and artists all in one location!

When: Thursday March 6, 2008, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Where: Seattle's Pioneer Square,
109 S. Washington Street (at the old Fenix in Occidental Square)

Why:

Featured photographers include:

• Bev Sparks, B Sparks Photography
• Emily Rieman, Best Friend Photography
• J. Nichole Smith, Dane & Dane Photography
• Jenifer Flynn, Four Legs Photography

Featured artists include:

• Jamie Pflughoeft, Decopaw Design
• Jennifer Sellers, Artist
• Shai Steiner, Animals In Primary
• Angela Ketelhut, Art by Angie

This dog friendly event is one-night-only, so don't miss this chance to mingle with fellow dog lovers and visit with the photographers and artists who will be on hand to discuss and share their wonderful works of fine art and photography with you. Also, bring your wallet! Many of the artists will have smaller pieces for sale- the perfect take-home items.

And be sure to bring your (friendly) dogs- this event is pet-friendly!

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Click here to add yourself to Cowbelly's Evite for the event

Yipee! Dogs and photography and art, oh my!!

Labels: citydog art show in pioneer square, citydog magazine gallery show, dog photography show, first thursday dogs, march 2008 first thursday

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I am very excited to announce that as of today I am officially signed on with my first (and only) Photographer's Representative: Auscape International

Auscape International promotes themselves as being:

"among the world's foremost sources of rights-managed natural history photography, that has developed a worldwide reputation as a premiere library specializing in wildlife and landscapes (and now domestic animals), working with 200 of some of the most highly respected nature photographers in the world."

For those who are scratching their heads as to what this means to me, a photographer's representative acts somewhat like an actor's or writer's rep, only works for photographers instead. A photo rep is a person with established contacts in the industry with art directors, ad agencies, magazines, publishers, stock agencies and more.

They do the dirty work to get a photographer's images in front of the people who are interested in using them. They are great for photographers like me who are too busy running their businesses and don't want to take on the daunting task of creating their own stock library and doing all of the costly promotions a small agency requires to find buyers for their images. And who also want their images to be of more benefit to them than they currently are sitting on their hard drives.

Auscape supplies images to stock agencies the world over, many of which are in Europe, so the potential for exposure is huge.

"How did this happen?" you ask?

I received an email from one of the directors of Auscape the day before my holiday vacation was over in early January, saying:

"I have been perusing your website and have found your work to be of wonderful quality and of great interest to us.

To this end we would ask if you are represented in Australia or any other countries worldwide. We have sub-agents in 68 countries and we would like to discuss the possibility of Auscape being your representative. Once again congratulations on your work and we look forward to your reply."

Can you believe it? I was thrilled! Thrilled. :-)

BUT not before checking them out. I have been contacted by a couple of agencies in the past and didn't feel they were the right fit for me or I had issues with their contract so turned them down. (There are a lot of not-so-great agencies out there).

Working with Auscape (thus far) has been a great (and relatively easy) process, if you don't count the time it took me last weekend to sort through my images, re-size and rename them and create metadata descriptions for each image. I started at something like 1072 images, then narrowed it down to about 730, then 400, then finally 340. (Their minimum submission requirement is 200 images). I am so thankful that I have worked hard on my photography the last year so I didn't need to do extensive photoshop processing on each image. Had that been the case it would have taken me 3 weeks instead of 3 days. I have a ways to go with photography yet but this gives me even more incentive to get the shots right 'in camera'. It will make it a lot easier to 'supply on demand'.

Today I am shipping off a DVD with approximately 340 images, all perfectly sized and renamed and looking purty.

What is really exciting (as if this isn't exciting enough), is that the images will be going on a DVD that will be played at a major pet industry trade show in New Zealand in early March.

Whoopee!!

Now that I have finished this labor-intensive process I can get back to my regular work and (hopefully) start posting more often.

Oh and BTW, this was to be my big project announcement for March, but I beat myself to my own deadline!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic day! It's SUNNY in Seattle! :-)

Labels: auscape agency, cowbelly goes global, international distribution, stock pet photography

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I have spent the weekend going through my image archives for one of my projects (to be announced on Tuesday). This has been a time-consuming process as there are literally thousands of dog and cat images on my hard drive (don't even get me started on the ones on discs).

I pulled a few never-before seen shots to share here. There is no rhyme or reason to them; they just happened to be the ones I saw first. All of these are from the Canon EOS 5D with the Canon 20mm prime lens.

Hope everyone had a terrific weekend!

Vegas and Emma (l-r)


Karma


Kate & Spencer (l-r)


Fergie and her crazy face. Notice the dilated pupils?


Robbie


Seamus


Kengo (Karma's big brother)


Scout


Kate


Monty


Roxie


Kate


Oliver


Sampson 1


Sampson 2


Sampson 3


Katie


Ramon and Beau (l-r)


Oscar


Fergie


Willy

Labels: cowbelly pet photography, crazy dogs photos, dog photography, from the archives, roxie, seattle pet photographer

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Brady and Chopper are two adorable boxers that I had the joy to work with (their photos anyway) in December for a Christmas gift for their dad from their mom.

Last week I designed some cafepress products that were to be a Valentines Day gift for their dad. (Boy, dad's getting all the loot!). I finally wanted to share their proofs and the super sweet comments their mom sent me, along with recent pics of the boys. I swear I have the best clients in the world!

Here are the boys' images that I worked with, nice large file sizes, which I love:

Brady



Chopper



And here is the proof their mom ended up ordering for their canvas:



And below is my personal fave of the proofs I designed. It's pretty different from most pieces I do. I think I like it because the colors are unusual.



And two shots of the cutie-pies that their mom sent me. Chopper the white puppy is apparently 'growing like grass'. Fergie and I get to go to their birthday party in the spring and meet them in person. We're very excited.





Brady and Chopper's mom's comment on their art:

"Thanks so much! My boyfriend loves his present!! He said it's the best present he's ever gotten. It's hanging in perfect place in the entry area and is the first thing we get to see before we leave for work & when we come home! Everyone has complimented your artwork and our friends just love it!"

YAY :-)

Labels: boxers, brady and chopper, decopaw design dog art, modern dog art

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These pics are a sneek-peak for Maggie and Pumpkin's mom. It will take me a couple more days yet to sort through the images from our shoot last weekend and get them online but I know their mom is excited to see them so I wanted to give her a sneak-peek.

These girls are Maggie and Pumpkin. Maggie is the darling white and brindle pitbull mix, and Pumpkin her cute-as-a-button Daschund mix little sister. They live in Magnolia and have a beautifully decorated house- a photographer's dream.









This shoot was super fun but also challenging for a couple of reasons. One, I could have used auxiliary lighting because it was so dark ouside (finally buying a flash this week, although I wouldn't have been able to use it for this shoot for the reasons below), and two- Maggie was very fearful of the camera. Every time I got even a little bit close to her with the camera she would bark at me, and if I really got too close to her she would lunge at me and go for my camera- not to attack me but to warn me. And I am convinced that she was telling her little sister Pumpkin "don't trust that big black thing! I swear it will steal your soul!!", which really made me laugh. The two shots above are Maggie warning me: "don't even think about it sister".







BUT, as you can see from the 3 shots above, the shoot went great, and Maggie was able to relax after a little bit of my patented 'camera meet dog, dog meet camera' training. She really did great and I had an awesome time at the shoot even given the challenges, because a) dogs don't scare me and b) I knew Maggie wasn't really serious (well, at least not really, really serious). My experience with dogs and knowledge of animal behavior were invaluable in this situation. I felt totally relaxed the whole time. Plus, as cute as they are, how could you not fall in love with these girls?





Ok, admittedly, in the shot above Maggie does look like she wants to take my head off, no?







And Pumpkin, is she one of the cutest little pups you have ever seen? Her personality was as sweet as her looks and I swear I could have stayed there all day (practically did) giving Pumpkin neck scratches and Maggie belly rubs.











Hope you enjoyed Maggie and Pumpkin as much as I enjoyed photographing them!

Labels: indoor dog photography, maggie, magnolia pet photography, pumpkin, seattle pet photographer, smiling dog photos

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First, my apologies for the sparse posts lately! I am working hard on several big projects, one to be announced in March, the other (big, big project) will be announced closer to summer (but hopefully sooner).

This is hands-down the busiest 1st quarter Cowbelly has ever seen, both in terms of client work and other opportunities, and I believe my prophecies about 2008 are already coming true. While this month is already starting to feel a bit like the holidays in terms of workload, I wouldn't give it up for love nor money and am so happy with everything that is going on.

To my clients who have been patiently waiting for art proofs or prints, I promise I haven't forgotten about you. Thank you sincerely for your patience and understanding. :-)

Now, onto this post that has nothing to do with pet photography....

I feel so privileged to live where I do, in one of the most beautiful cities in the country (IMHO). Many people believe that it rains every day of the year in Seattle but that really isn't the case. The shots below were taken in December and January respectively, and are proof that you never know what you will get in the Emerald City.





The shots above were taken last month at Queen Anne's Kerry Park, shortly after I looked out my window and saw the fiery sunset. "Holy cow! I've got to capture that!" I thought. I wanted to use the image to make a sky gradient out of for my Decopaw art, which is exactly what I ended up doing. In the 2nd shot I was experimenting with blur. After I noticed the planes flying overhead I thought it would be cool to make all of the lights streak.



This last shot above was taken in December on the way home from a photo shoot. I was cruising along the Alaskan Way viaduct and held my camera up to the window as I was driving. Not the smartest thing in the world to do but hey, I couldn't help it! Pretty sunset + camera in my lap = no brainer. :-)

Hope everyone is having a terrific week!!

Labels: elliot bay sunset, seattle sunsets, winter in seattle

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Astro's shoot was on Saturday at my favorite place for dog photography in Seattle- the Olympic Sculpture Park on the waterfront.

I was reluctant to book the shoot for Saturday because it was supposed to be a mix of rain/snow, but we went for it anyway and were so glad we did! It ended up being completely dry out.

As should be obvious from his images, Astro is a great dane; just a puppy at 18 months, with a goofy puppy personality, and so fun to photograph. He is a beautiful blue dane, with fur that is not unlike a weimeraner's; a sort of mix between blue and brown.

I will also be designing Decopaw art of Astro and will try and remember to post that here once the proofs are done.





I'm hoping one of these head-tilt shots will be used for our art piece.



The OSP has some really cool backdrops.



I love his swirly ears in this shot.







This is my new favorite image. Isn't he handsome?









I love Astro's big floppy ears. They are so soft.

Funny/Scary story:
At one point his collar popped off and he thought it would be fun to run away from us and play 'keep away'. Neither I nor his mom thought it funny, but he thought it was a riot, jumping and frolicking around, waiting in a play bow until we almost got him, then bouncing off again, with all of the park visitors laughing at him and us. Well, all except the two guys running with their lab, who about had a heart attack when they saw Astro bounding toward them. Sorry guys! He really did just want to play!

Labels: astro, goofy dog photos, great dane, olympic sculpture park photography, winter dog shoots

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This week I had the pleasure of photographing Nancy, a super sweet playful pug whose name comes from her walk, which is really quite fancy.

Nancy walks like she doesn't have kneecaps, throwing her legs out in front of her straight-legged. It is one of the cutest dog walks I have ever seen and I was cracking up once I saw her get going outside. I really wish I had a video of her, but these shots of her adorableness will have to do.

Oh, and while I was there I couldn't forget her sweet little buddy Ollie, who got himself roughed up in a cat fight last Friday and had to have surgery to get all fixed up. We relieved him of his cone for a few shots on his favorite chair. Love Ollie.

Nancy did the head-tilt like a pro, as evidenced by the shots below.

Labels: funny pug pictures, goofy running pug dog, nancy, ollie, pug dog photos, sammamish pet photography

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First, a little blurb on a not-to-be-missed upcoming Valentines event for Seattleites and their pooches.

This will be the 6th event that CityDog Magazine has held at the glamorous and dog-friendly W Hotel in downtown Seattle. It's the perfect fit for our favorite Pacific Northwest doggie magazine and its devoted readers.

Fergie and I will be there- she in her rock star studded purple leather Primp Doggy couture coat, and me in, well, that remains to be seen. (But I promise to not be in my usual grungy dog park or photo shoot gear!)

If this event is anything like the holiday party in December it will be packed to the gills with fancily-dressed dog lovers and their stylin pooches, industry folks, writers, photographers, press, etc, etc. I am very much looking forward to seeing all of my industry friends (and clients!) there!

BTW: because I have so much going on (more projects than I can shake a tail at!) I won't be holding my own Valentines event as previously noted on my website.



CityDog Puppy Love MuttMixer!

WHO
CityDog Magazine, you and the furry, four-legged love of your life

WHAT
Join CityDog Magazine and fellow dog lovers to mix and mingle, sip cocktails and swap doggy tails. Are you single? Even better! Puppy love will be in the air, so whoknows...you might just meet that special two-legged someone to add to your pack.

Photographer extraordinaire J. Nichole Smith of Dane & Dane Photography will be on hand to snap portraits of your furry friend (available for purchase).

WHEN
Wednesday, February 13, 06:00 PM - 08:00 PM

WHERE
W Seattle, W Bar and Living Room
1112 4th Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101
Click here for directions

WHY
Why for the love of dog, of course!

RSVP
rsvp@citydogmagazine.com
Party Animal Rules: Dogs must remain on-leash and be under your control at all times. Dogs (and people for that matter) must also play well with others. Thank you for your understanding!

Read more about the event on the W Hotel website here.

Then, there is the fabulous Winter issue.

Now, for those who don't know, CityDog magazine is already fabulous (I've been a devoted reader since it's inception over 2 years ago), but the winter issue (on newsstands now) is even more fabulous than normal!

First, the cover dog is the adorable Buddha, the cover model contest winner from PAWSwalk. I had the super fun honor of photographing him for the event, and then he ended up winning the whole contest, out of hundreds of dogs! I was rooting for him so I am stoked that he won. He is even cuter in person and the talented Nichole of Dane & Dane did an awesome job capturing his happy personality on the cover of the winter issue.



Then, you will find my new Decopaw art ad that looks like this:



Every issue will feature the same fun, colorful frame, with a different art piece befitting the season. I need to come up with the perfect image for the spring ad. Merry perhaps? She seems very springy.

Then, the cutest dog in Seattle, Fergie (sorry, I'm biased) is featured in an article on living with dogs in small spaces. There are several shots of her in my apartment, taken by my friend and colleague Nichole at Dane and Dane, including a super cute one of her in the kitchen smiling up at the camera.

Here is a sample snap of Fergie giving me 10, courtesy of, and copyright Dane & Dane Photography.



Ironically, another dog featured in the article is Fergie's buddy from the Belltown off leash dog park- Blue. We both love Blue (especially me!) and I was delighted when I realized who he was.

AND, as if that's not enough, you will find my photography gracing the article on cancer. Sadly I am a very good resource for photographs of dogs who have cancer, as I have photographed many a pooch whose life has been cut short from the terrible disease.

This was a hard project for me to do as I get so attached to my subjects so quickly, and looking through their images was painful. I have yet to be able to actually read the article, because my throat closes up when I think about all of the buddies I have lost to cancer, but I am really pleased that the editor Brandie Ahlgren did such a great job of honoring these precious dogs in the image captions. I will treasure this issue forever.

Sorry I can't provide more images of the articles here, you are just going to have to subscribe or pick up an issue if you want to see them!

Also, stay tuned for more information on the upcoming CityDog Magazine First Thursday dog-friendly Art Show in Pioneer Square, to be held on Thursday, March 6th, 5-9pm!

Labels: citydog art show in pioneer square, citydog valentines day event, decopaw ad, gallery show, photographer jamie pflughoeft, small spaces article

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