One of the biggest honours is when another photographer hires you – we are super fussy and have very specific ideas in our heads about what a photo “should” look like. We all have different shooting and editing styles as well, so when Karina asked me to photograph her and her dogs, I was stoked. Karina is a talented wedding photographer who I met at a recent workshop, and she is working on revamping her site. As part of that, she wanted to include photos of herself with Gidget and Ralph – two big bouncy Dalmatians who are just big bundles of joy. To top it off, Karina is also gorgeous and super easy to work with.

We had our session down in Point Addis, just around the corner from Bells Beach in Torquay. Bells is a huge surf beach, but Point Addis was lovely and calm. There were so many exciting new smells for the dogs – I was lucky that Karina’s partner took on the role of dog wrangler so well – dancing, singing, running around, and being generally awesome to work with.

What made this session really lovely was seeing the connection that Ralph and Karina had – Ralph has been a family member for eleven years, and the bond these two share was so obvious. At eleven, Ralph still thinks he’s a puppy, he was so full of beans. Gidget didn’t stop for a second – at three years old she’s still a puppy too. The great part about this shoot was that I was given creative control – being told “I trust you” by another photographer is always awesome to hear. Thanks so much Karina for choosing me for your shoot!