Portraits of dogs are always a pleasure to look at. It’s even more of an amusement when they seem to pose or smile for the camera. As they do not understand plain English, it can be difficult to elicit specific emotions and expressions, so the photographer has no choice but to get creative. In this case, photographer Elke Vogelsang bribed her furry friends with a cookie or two for their cooperation.
Wanting to explore the use of wide angles in photography, she first began shooting close-up pictures of the multi-functional snout. Enter Noodles, Scout and Oilo, Elke’s three companions and the stars of these photos. Two of them were Spanish strays rescued from a kill shelter in Spain, while the third is “a mix of everything that passed promenade” whose mother was also rescued from a kill shelter.
The wide angle, combined with the macro mode on her camera, created a visually appealing effect, one that she experimented with time and time again via trial and error. The result was this adorable photo series called Nice Nosing You. Having well-trained dogs definitely comes in handy, especially when testing out new techniques and approaches.
Elke also has more photos of her adorable companions wearing all sorts of props, from scarves, to sunglasses, to hoodies and santa hats. Whatever the accessory, her dogs are captured tastefully and beautifully on camera.
In case you’re wondering, Elke shot these photos with a Fujifilm Finepix X20, a 12-MP premium compact camera. It just goes to show that you don’t need the latest and most expensive camera out there to make an impact on the viewer.
“I have an Elinchrom D-Lite 4 set, with which I do my studio shots. I usually let the dogs sit on a reflector to reflect the light from beneath the dog,” she tells us. Two other lights, one directly in front and another one at an angle, complete the simple lighting setup.
In the future, Elke mentions her desire to extend the series to other animals. She has already begun that installment with this close-up of a horse’s mouth:
Elke Vogelsang is based in Hildesheim, Germany. She shoots weddings, portraits of men and women and families, children and pets. Visit her website to see more of her work.
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