Emerge Pet Photography Awards Part 2

Emerge Pet Photography Awards - Portfolio Review

I felt like I needed two posts to share about the Emerge Awards. While the individual pet photography challenges are judged individually the portfolios are then reviewed as a whole.

Each challenge is very different, and one of the biggest challenges I find is maintaining my own artistic style, even when photographing something very different.

I am really proud to have received a Highly Commended Portfolio award this round.

Here's what the judges had to say: "Courtney - your warm, rich style is evident across nearly all your challenge submissions. You've cleverly interpreted the brief and responded so willingly to feedback. That Bokelicious image is full of golden beauty the Shake image is a favourite too and Double Trouble - what we can say - you make it look easy (but we know it wasn't). Amazing work throughout Emerge!"

I love each of these images. And you know what I love the most? Most of the images were created with YOUR dogs.

Which one is your favorite?

The next round of challenges is called Empower and begins in early 2024.

The Emerge Dog Photography Awards Challenges by Unleashed Education presents an international group of professional pet photographers with 12 challenges - each with a different theme of image to create, enter, and compete. While the primary goal is competition with myself - pushing myself creatively and improving my craft of pet photography - we also competed with each other. Each challenge is judged by two of the world’s leading pet photographers with decades in business, a long list of awards from international photography competitions, and some big name commercial clients (let’s just say you’ve seen their work on numerous occasions).

In each challenge you can receive a Top 20 or a Top 10 placement - as well as feedback on your work and suggestions for improvement. In the end I finished with a “Highly Commended Portfolio” highlighting work of a professional standard for my final 12 submissions, 3 Top 10 images, and 5 Top 20 images as well as an Overall Winner in the Double Trouble Challenge.

What to read next?

The Emerge Dog Photography Awards Part 1

The Awards Show

Last night we settled in to watch the Emerge Dog Photography Awards LIVE via Zoom. It was really fun to revisit each challenge, see the top images, and see the overall winner for each challenge announced.

Over the last 6 months I feel like I have really gotten to know some incredible pet photographers across the globe as we competed together. One of the things I love most about my fellow pet photographers is that even when we are competing, we are colleagues and friends first. It was great to cheer each other along and celebrate each other's successes in the challenges.

Seeing the work others submitted, I am absolutely blown away to have received the overall challenge win for Double Trouble.

Big thanks to Hannah, Maple, & Party for making this image happen.

This was my first photo session post surgery and I was nervous how my body would do and if my brain would work creatively after taking so much time off to heal, but I had made a commitment to complete the challenges within the time frame.

And while, I was SORE the day after and my image right out of camera was seriously TILTED as I struggled to hold the heavy camera & lens with weak core and arm muscles - I am so proud of how the image turned out. And I am thrilled with it's first place spot in the Emerge Dog Photography Awards for Double Trouble.

Here's what the judge's had to say: "A beautiful image with a clever design. The tonality and softness of the light and mist give it an ethereal quality."

Getting the Final Image

Here's a look at all the images of how my "concept drawing" moved from paper, to raw file, to the edit, and finally the finished image. 

I never claimed to be a sketch artist, but I was trying to convey to Hannah how I envisioned the Pharaoh hounds placed on the dock and where she would need to stand to hold their leashes.

Image directly out of camera - The RAW format often seems "flat" but so much detail is contained inside this file type. 

Image after post processing in lightroom - Lightroom is the darkroom of digital photography - bringing back the detail our eyes saw.

Image after photoshop- Photoshop was used to remove the leash, Hannah the handler, clean up the dock, and remove distractions. I also centered the post under the dock to highlight the symmetry of the image.

The next round of challenges is called Empower and begins in early 2024.

Does your dog have what it takes to be an Empower model?

The Emerge Dog Photography Awards Challenges by Unleashed Education presents an international group of professional pet photographers with 12 challenges - each with a different theme of image to create, enter, and compete. While the primary goal is competition with myself - pushing myself creatively and improving my craft of pet photography - we also competed with each other. Each challenge is judged by two of the world’s leading pet photographers with decades in business, a long list of awards from international photography competitions, and some big name commercial clients (let’s just say you’ve seen their work on numerous occasions).

In each challenge you can receive a Top 20 or a Top 10 placement - as well as feedback on your work and suggestions for improvement. In the end I finished with a “Highly Commended Portfolio” highlighting work of a professional standard for my final 12 submissions, 3 Top 10 images, and 5 Top 20 images as well as an Overall Winner in the Double Trouble Challenge.

What to read next?

Photographing Dogs on Rocks - The Up Ups Dog Photography Challenge

Dog Photography Tricks of the Trade

One of the trickiest tricks a pet photographer must have up her sleeve is how to keep dogs that don’t know “stay” to stay for a photo. While there are a few tricks I use during nearly every session, one of my favorites is an Up Ups.

Up Ups just means elevating the dog just a bit so taking a step requires more effort than just standing still. Dogs can go Up Ups on just about anything - a fallen tree, a log, a stump, a bench, a garden wall - or in the case of this image - up on rocks.

A Failed Attempt at a Dog In Landscape Photography

Photographing Hana the German Shepherd dog on rocks for Up Ups wasn’t my original plan. If you read the last post about Dogscapes - photographing dogs in landscapes - you know my original plan was to photograph Hana with the view off Preachers Rock at sunrise as the background. Alas, despite 4 AM alarms, 2.5 hour drives, and mountain hikes at sunrise - heavy cloud cover foiled our efforts, but I wasn’t going to let a few clouds keep us from creating a beautiful photograph.

Dogs on Rocks

I’ve been lucky enough to photograph Hana several times over the last few years, both at my Pet Portrait Events and both of her pet birthday sessions! Hana is a joy to photograph, equal parts stunning beauty and silly shepherd girl. For this session her mom brought along some steak to convince Hana that modeling was worth it. I really love Hana photographed up on the rocks with a slightly melancholy mood to fit the cloudy day.

Getting the Final Image

My biggest challenge with this image was keeping Hana from getting lost when photographing her on the rocks. With Hana perched on the rocks they are very close to being on the same focal plane - meaning the rocks would also be in focus creating a lot of very in focus texture close to my subject. 

With careful post processing work I decreased the sharpness of the rocks, enhanced the leading line to Hana and removed Hana's bright pink leash. I also created a vignette that brings extra light to Hana amking her face the star of the image. 

This image earned a Top 10 placement in Up Ups and our final feedback:  "There's a lovely subdued mood in this image, really elevated by the misty weather and the dog's calm and serene pose and expression."

While I typically make only simple edits to the final image - in this piece I wanted to make sure the texture of the rock, especially on the left, didn't pull focus from our pretty dog.

Using Photoshop I reduced the texture of the rock and simplified the left side of the image to make a stronger leading line coming up to Hana perched at the top of the rock.