I've known the Hitchen family for as long as I can remember.. I think I've known them since I was at nursery!
I've not seen them in a number of years - it was lovely to catch up with them when they asked me to come and photograph Freddie along with their adorable new puppy - Stanley!
Freddie and Stanley (17 weeks old at the time) are both scottie dogs. Annabel had seen some photographs of other black dogs I had done and asked me to have a go; as she had struggled getting photographs of the dark dogs.
We met up at a local yard which had a lovely open field as well as little lanes and woodland areas.
We started off in the open field getting photographs of the dogs running around, playing with the toys etc. Annabel's daughters, Emily and Poppy were also in the photographs. I got some nice shots of them running with the dogs as well as experimenting with depth of field to get some interesting and eye catching photographs. Annabel also wanted to be in a few photos too!
The photographs were to be printed for the grandparents at Christmas.. after all what do you get the "people who have everything?"
The leaves were just starting to turn along one edge of the field which worked really well to bring out the detail in the dog's black fur. On our way back through the lanes my assistant for the day, Alex, spotted a lovely carved wooden bench that we could put the dogs on. This meant little Stanley could get off the ground and I could get some lovely photographs of the dogs heads. Stanley was very well behaved for a puppy and even showed Freddie up at times!
I always love a good black and white picture and what better excuse than for adorable puppy eyes and beautiful black dogs! The dogs were excellent and despite the challenge of getting small dark, running dogs, they were very pleased with the outcome! I really enjoyed this shoot and it was so lovely to meet up with the family after all these years.