Tank the tank.

oh how i love a bulldog puppy! (photos taken in and around the awesome shirlington dog park.)

Breathtaking baby giraffe.

Everyone has someone they want to be when they grow up and I think that person for me is Sharon Montrose. She's an animal photographer based out of LA and her work is beautiful and stylized and full of wonderful animal expressions and moments, with some very exotic animals. In this video she photographs a precious 3-month-old giraffe and talks about how photographing animals helped her to reclaim her love for photography.

She expresses a lot of how I feel about my work with Houndstooth. I've also taken pictures since I was 15, and have gone through so many phases with my work. It's a true passion for me because I have struggled with it. Sometimes when I am shooting, I am so completely in the moment and feel unbelievably powerful, and then other times I've been so frustrated that I can't find the inspiration to capture something the way I know it can be captured.

I had also resigned myself just to have photography as a hobby, but then my life took a shift and and Lara and I decided to start Houndstooth. Although I knew I loved animals and I loved photography, I was unprepared for how much I was going to love photographing animals. In our sessions, these animals exude so much postivity which makes me happy and makes the owners happy. The photographs always show me a bit more than I can see with my own eye about how uniqueness and beauty of each animal.

Now it's almost been a year since Lara moved back to the midwest and I've been running Houndstooth on my own. So many of the administrative structures have already been established, so I am much freer to just enjoy the photo shoots and the work that results. I feel lucky that I have such fun work and I know that this feeling will keep bringing Houndstooth new opportunities...maybe even opportunities that involve a baby giraffe.

Wylie Wagg once again.

Despite having to reschedule our Valentines Day shoot because of the snow, we ended up having a great day and I got a ton of great photographs. I love working with Wylie Wagg! Thank you to everyone for coming out.

Surfing alpaca

I love Peru for so many reasons (I lived there for over two years with the Peace Corps) because it always surprises me and this story is no exception. There is an animal trainer and surfer who has not only trained his dog and cat to surf with him, but now has gotten his pet alpaca "Pisco" to correr tabla (Peruvian slang for surf) with him. Peru has some of the best surfing in the world and is home to some of the worlds finest alpacas but I never imagined that the coast could meet the mountains in this way. Ah, innovation. Click here to see a newcast with live action surf footage but I warn you it's in Spanish

A sweet political moment...

This is Cody, the cocker spaniel puppy of a nice man named Ted who lives over in the Capitol Hill area. He hired me because years ago he took a great picture of his other Cocker Spaniel, Lucky (14 years old), and wanted to have a picture of Cody to put by its side. We concentrated on capturing Cody's boundless energy and cheerful nature and selected the above photograph to share a frame with Lucky's photograph.

A few days after receiving the photography, Ted decided to make a few copies for his neighbors who are friends with Lucky and Cody. One of these neighbors is Senator Dodd from from Connecticut who has a house a few blocks away, whose daughters love these dogs. Upon seeing the photograph, his daughter Grace (age 7) kissed it and her nanny made the promise that she will kiss it every night. How is that for political endorsement? :)

Lucky dogs.

Here is a sampling of portraits I did for a fundraiser for Lucky Dog animal rescue hosted by Wagtime Pets. Everyone at Lucky Dog and Wagtime does a lot for a lot of great pets coming from tough situations and it was awesome to see so many people come out for a good cause. And a lot of cuteness occurred on my studio paper, as evidenced by the above photographs. Thanks to all for coming out!

I want to give a special shout-out for Kuma (the first dog in the set--with the HUGE black, beautiful head) and his owner Karyn. She has created this great little contraption called The Bag Bag, which attaches your plastic bags on your leash. It seems like such a simple thing, but I have spent many walks with plastic bags coming out of my coat pockets (or worse, not having a bag when you need one) and have decided that its quite functional. Karyn and Kuma are also just nice people so it's good to support more of that in our world.

Also, I am doing another portrait session this Sunday at Wylie Wagg in Tysons, VA. It's the make-up for the Valentines Day sessions that were canceled due to the snow. I have about three more slots if anyone is interested in getting a few sweet shots of your pet. Please contact me at houndstoothphotography@gmail.com for more details.

I need one of these in my life.

Sadly, I don't know who took this photo or where I can find this dog but it makes me happy just to look at it. Does anyone out there have a Shar-pei they need photographed? Pretty please?