Remembering Shelby - Best Fur-iend Forever

Shelby is one of my childhood pets who spent 14 wonderful years being pampered by my parents. The last time I visited my parents I took some photos of Shelby for my mother as I knew Shelby was getting up there in age and her health had started to decline. Shelby loved being photographed but had no interest in moving from her favorite spot on their back door stoop.  Still, I felt like I had captured some nice portraits of her to share.  Little did I know, that was the last time I would see her as she passed away just a few weeks later. I hope these images provide some comfort for my parents as they grieve the loss of a truly wonderful pet. I miss you Shelby, you will always be my best fur-iend forever.

I really wanted to try to capture all the endearing facial expressions she makes.  Here's a small sample of some of them:

If you have an elderly pet or a pet in declining health, please contact me about my "Best Fur-iend Forever" sessions.  These sessions are greatly reduced in price and can be done with very little advance notice because I believe everyone should have lasting mementos of their pets while we still have them in our lives.

Chico the Chihuahua

Can I first just say how much I love that this little guy is named Chico?  It fits him perfectly. He may be small, but he packs a lot of spunk in his little frame.  Chico loved to run and look everywhere, except at me, until I broke out my secret weapon - cheese!  His mom clued me into his preference for provolone ahead of time. I'm not too proud to say I literally bribed him to look at the camera and say "cheese"!  But it turned out that some of my favorite photos from his shoot ended up being the ones where he wasn't looking at the camera.  Check out his striking profile!

Bella!

I had the honor of photographing a truly beautiful dog, who is fittingly named Bella, at the Maitland Art Center. Bella is a very young 10 year old Maltese with energy to spare.  Her mom, Christine, is extremely photogenic and you can really see her upbeat personality shining through these images.  I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I had taking them!

Meet Denver!

Denver is an energetic, four month old puppy, and she couldn't be more cute! We met her and her mom, Shannon, in Winter Park at Kraft Azalea Gardens. It was a sweltering hot day, even at 6:30pm, but Denver humored me and my camera and struck some adorable poses for me.  It was great meeting you Denver and Shannon!

I normally don't do very heavy photo editing, I like to keep things as true to real life as possible.  But something about the next photo: the columns, the inscription of "Pause" in the stone; it just seemed very old/vintage to me, so I decided to try to capture that feeling with my editing:

Rabb and Abby

Rabb is my first cat client, not including my own cat of course.  Rabb tolerated my camera rather well, and even showed off some of his fashion accessories for me.  Notice his stylish blue nail caps!

I had to convert this photo to black and white to really show off his whiskers.  I love how they change from black to white!

Rabb's sister, Abby, is quite possibly one of the most photogenic dogs I have ever met.  She's a cute mixture of part Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and part Shih Tzu.  I wanted to take her home with me!