Why My New Years Resolution is to be in Photos WITH my Dogs
I'm a professional dog photographer. I have thousands of professional photos OF my dogs and countless phone photos OF my dogs.
I have very few photos WITH my dogs.
That single word swap — of versus with — makes a world of difference. And in the spirit of practicing what I preach, I'm making it a priority.
Why I've Put It Off
I hear the same reasons from clients that I tell myself:
I need to lose weight first.My hair isn't right.I don't photograph well.I'll do it when I look better.
For years I used those same reasons to put off getting photos with my heart horse, Ginger. My grandmother asked me so many times for a picture of me with her. I kept promising. I kept waiting until I was thirty pounds thinner, until the timing felt right, until I felt worthy of being in the frame.
My grandmother passed away in 2019 — and there was still an empty space in her frame where the photo of me and Ginger was supposed to go.
I finally booked the session in 2020. Ginger passed just months later.
Those photographs — made when I didn't feel ready, when I had gained weight instead of lost it, when my hair had been untouched for most of a pandemic year — became some of the most important images I own.
What the Photos Are Actually About
When I look at the images Charlotte made of me with Ginger, I don't see the flaws I always saw in the mirror.
I see the relationship. The thirty years. The little girl on the porch calling for "Rosie Dick" because she couldn't say Dixie Rose. The teenager taking dressage lessons. The woman who finally got her farm. The horse who was there through all of it.
That's what being in the photos is for. Not for how you look. For what you have — and for proof that you were there, too.
Your dog's life is recorded in photos OF them. Your relationship — the specific, irreplaceable thing between the two of you — only gets documented when you're in the frame.
The Resolution
I'm committing to scheduling a session each year where I'm in photos with my dogs. Not as the photographer. As the person who loves them.
And I'm asking you to do the same.
Not when you've lost the weight. Not when your hair is cooperating. Now. While your dog still greets you at the door the way they always have.
You are part of this story. Be in it.
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