From the Barkives — Holly

We have had some big per­son­al­i­ties in the stu­dio before, every pet we pho­to­graph has some­thing unique about them that I want to bring out in my pho­tos. Not often though am I imme­di­ately reminded of both an his­tor­i­cal fig­ure and one of my own furry fam­ily. Meet Holly!

Straight off I could tell that we were going to get along, just as long as I played by Holly’s rules. These rules pretty much revolved around not stop­ping, whether it was giv­ing belly rubs or treats — just keep ‘em com­ing! She has this abil­ity to turn a huge smile into a dis­ap­prov­ing frown with just the lift of an eye­brow, and I have to admit to teas­ing her just a bit to get this look for the cam­era. All this reminded me of our own best girl, Sophie, who runs our house with a paw of iron (espe­cially keep­ing those pesky kit­tens under con­trol). I felt so at home pho­tograph­ing Holly as a result.

Holly was by turn play­ful, smi­ley, bossy, hun­gry, inquis­i­tive, impa­tient, seri­ous, giv­ing, demand­ing, did I men­tion bossy?  Just as all senior dogs should be. Pup­pies can be like a blank can­vas, just wait­ing to gain life’s expe­ri­ences to fill out their per­son­al­i­ties. Old dogs are like an old mas­ter paint­ing, maybe peel­ing a bit at the edges but they have sur­vived the test of time, and their expe­ri­ence is writ­ten in their faces. I just love pho­tograph­ing old dogs.

My favourite photo is the first, with Holly star­ing dom­i­neer­ingly off into the dis­tance over the top of the cam­era. I pho­tographed her from a low posi­tion to empha­size the scale of her per­son­al­ity, and sud­denly she reminded me of Mag­gie Thatcher, glar­ing down her crit­ics at a polit­i­cal con­fer­ence in the early 80s, giv­ing her famous “The Lady is Not for Turn­ing” speech. I asked her mum to stand behind me and call her, Holly gave that look, and its cap­tured forever.

 

Old dogs are the best dogs.

 

 

 

 

 

One Response to “From the Barkives — Holly”

1. Keryl says:

   March 10, 2011 at 8:11 am

   Hi Ken and Beck

   What a won­der­ful sur­prise to see our “Holly” fea­tured. You have cap­tured her mul­ti­ple (dare I say it) per­son­al­i­ties in a lovely story. “Holly” is cer­tainly the same girl/ lady — now approach­ing her 11th birth­day. She is still very strong-willed, but more lov­ing with her advanc­ing years and sur­prises us every day with new antics. Since Chester, her brother, has gone, Holly is more vocal and tries to tell us, our familiy mem­bers and the neigh­bours and our vet all sorts of sto­ries.
   Ken, you have a spe­cial gift of cap­tur­ing the per­son­al­ity of ani­mals in a short time and you gain their trust to cap­ture these spe­cial moments forever.

   Thank You for remind­ing me of that spe­cial day that you pho­tographed Holly.

   Kind regards

   Keryl