Photography has always been my default creative outlet. Though I admire and am often awestruck by other types of art I never had much of a knack for painting, drawing or sculpting myself even though my mom still kindly, if not sentimentally, uses the ladybug and frog doorstops I painted on rocks in kindergarten.
When I was 8 or 9 I picked up a Kodak Instamatic my folks had and remember stalking a neighborhood cat in my yard while lying on the ground to take his picture (yep, the pet thing started early). What I recall even more vividly though was the sheer excitement of tearing open the envelope right in the camera shop, a week later, when the prints were ready. It was love at first sight. That creative thrill has never changed even though with the evolution of digital cameras the time to gratification certainly has. A few decades later I’m still chasing that feeling and spending a lot of my time on the ground with a camera in front of dogs, cats and other pets.
As a creative type I’m always looking for ways to challenge myself and delightfully one of my favorite approaches to this is by incorporating other types of artwork into my photographed pet portraits. Whether it’s a painting in the background of a dining room or a dog in the sunny sidewalk in front of a mural I find that the art enhances my art. I fell into this habit unintentionally a year or two after I started as a pro. I was working with a dog named Riley in a small bedroom without much uncluttered space to shoot against, so I got him onto the bed and ended up catching him directly in front of a red abstract painting. My first thought was that perhaps I’d made a mistake and it would be way too distracting, so I quickly moved on and switched to another room. However, when I went through the shots later the portrait in front of the painting was the clear standout — Riley had even blinked when I took it, so it looked like he was contemplating the painting. What I thought was a total error ended up being a wonderful mistake, and now I do my best to leave a little space for wonderful mistakes in all my sessions. That’s where the creativity tends to happen.
Now, whenever I’m shooting in a home or out on location and there is artwork present I try to include it in at least a shot or two to add interest and make it more than a standard portrait. Doing this forces me to change angles and position and often gets me a shot with or without the artwork in it that I would never have thought of before. Sometimes the artwork is a part of the background providing contrast or beauty. Sometimes art creates the entire background, such as the scores of beautiful murals down in the Mission, where I just love to shoot. Other times the art is just as much a main subject as the pet — like the amazing Boston Terrier tattoo on a proud dog dad’s leg with the real-life model-dog standing next to it.
Truth be told, these happy accidents often lead to the best images: for me they’re the perfect mix of skill, practice and luck!
Mark Rogers is a San Francisco photographer specializing in eye-catching images of pets and their people. Voted the #1 dog photographer in Bay Woof for 2015, Mark is available for private, commissioned sessions in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also shoots for advertising clients throughout the U.S. and donates his time and photography to many animal rescue and welfare groups. To learn more about working with Mark visit his website at MarkRogersPhotography.com or call (415) 378-8602.
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Main article photo by: Mark Rogers
