Dog Art Today

Charles Darwin: A Wife is Better than a Dog Anyhow

The pros and cons of marriage by Charles Darwin, age 29, London 1838

Darwin writes:

This is the Question

Marry

Children (if it Please God)
Constant companion (and friend in old age) who will feel interested in one
Object to be beloved and played with. Better than a dog anyhow
Home, & someone to take care of house
Charms of music and female chit-chat
These things good for one’s health—but terrible loss of time
My God, it is intolerable to think of spending one’s whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, and nothing after all—No, no, won’t do
Imagine living all one’s day solitary in smoky dirty London House
Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire and books and music perhaps
Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Great Marlboro Street, London

Not Marry

Freedom to go where one liked
Choice of Society and little of it
Conversation of clever men at clubs
Not forced to visit relatives and bend in every trifle
Expense and anxiety of children
Perhaps quarrelling
Loss of Time
Cannot read in the evenings
Fatness and idleness
Anxiety and responsibility
Less money for books etc.
If many children forced to gain one’s bread (But then it is very bad for one’s health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife won’t like London; then the sentence is banishment and degradation into indolent, idle fool

Marry, Marry, Marry Q.E.D.

I had to look up what Q.E.D. means; From latin, "quod erat demonstrandum," in English, "that which was to be demonstrated." 

Via 3QuarksDaily with some interesting thoughts on Darwin's analysis by Alta L. Price.

P.S. Happy Anniversary to my parents who just celebrated their 47th year of marriage.

Clair Hartmann's Downtown Dog Project Book

I featured North Carolina artist Clair Hartmann last July when she was in the middle of painting 101 dogs at the Wilmington Farmers' Market to incorporate in a book called The Downtown Dog Project.  True to her word, and an inspiration to every dog-a-day painter who aspires to publish someday, Clair's book is now available at blurb.  Congratulations, Clair.  It look beautiful.

Proceeds from the book sales benefit Adopt-an-Angel.  See more of Clair's work at her Daily Painting blog.

Magic Marker Dog Art by Li Huawen

Jellyfish writes:

Beijing-based creative Li Huawen (李画文) loves animals, especially dogs. He has always drawn to express his own heart, so it’s no surprise that he has now started working on a dog portrait series. Below we’ve shared these insanely awesome, detailed and colorful illustrations, created with marker pen on paper. Oh, how we love these! 

Via NeochaEDGE, a site dedicated to emerging artists and the youth culture of China.

Dispatch from Dog Bar: One Year Anniversary

Darby at Dog Bar by Moira McLaughlin, June 2010

Today is Take Your Dog to Work Day, so I thought I would share this photo of Darby, my Longhaired Dachshund, looking out the front door of our "office."  Today is also the one year anniversary of the day I left Los Angeles after calling it home for 20 years.  It was a surreal day for me that started with a face-off with a coyote at 9am in the Hollywood Hills as I was packing up my car to leave my friend Kris's house (where I stayed the night before I left).  My hands were full, Darby was on a leash only a few feet away from the predator known for devouring many Hollywood dogs.  And he just stood there on the sidewalk in broad daylight staring me down like it was his territory.  I took it as a good omen that it was time for me to be getting out of town.  I surrendered. 

Then, as I hit the road, news came that Farrah Fawcett had died.  Few people will remember this because later that afternoon, I found out when I checked in with my sister by phone, Michael Jackson was rushed to the hospital and died too.  Because all the radio stations I heard on the road were corporate owned pre-programmed national entities, there was no news about the chaos surrounding Michael Jackson's last hours until his death.  Then, the disc jockeys couldn't help themselves.  They went off script and discussed it, but none had his music scheduled on their playlists, so there were hours of a disconnect between the radio and reality.   It was very strange that the King of Pop didn't make it into the rotation of much of the news or music on the day he died.

As I pulled into Grass Valley to start my life in a small town that most people have never heard of, where there are no movie stars, and few corporations (we do have a K-Mart and a JC Penney), I felt like I was entering a new country.  Later I would learn that the gold miners who founded the town often wrote to their families asking "What's going on back in the States?"  My sister, who lives here too and sent word that I should come and stake my claim, and I now find ourselves asking each other "Have you talked to anybody back in the States?" because that is how removed it feels.  Ironically, it is also feels like the "America" brand that is sold in lemonade and Mountain Dew commercials.  We actually swim in the river.  We pick wildflowers.  We go to parades and county fairs. And we know each other.  Sometimes that means I think twice about what I put in my garbage because I know people who work at Waste Management.  It also means that when you hear a ambulance siren, you worry someone you might know might be hurt.  And when someone dies you discover that even though you lived here less than a year, you are connected to him or her in several ways.   And as in the case of Jim Rogers who was killed riding his bike in January, you now have a sticker with his name on it on your cell phone reminding you not to talk and drive (courtesy of his wife who I met at the Tour of California bike race and Bicyclists Against Distracted Drivers).

Overall the most amazing discovery about small town living is that every cliché is true and every cliché is false.  Meaning every corny fish-out-of-water-city-folk-goes to-the-country stereotype feels like it is playing out to me, but every preconception I had about rural people seems vaguely offensive.  For example, now when I watch "The Office" I find myself identifying more and more with beet farmer Dwight Schrute.  Manure is important.

I love the photo above of Darby looking out the front door because it has a Wizard of Oz Dorothy opening the door to a new land quality to it that I am grateful to feel every day here in my new home.  Not to say that Los Angeles is not still a technicolor dream, I just couldn't see it anymore.

Small Dog, Big Dog by Barbara Karant

"How did she do this?"  That was all I could think when I looked at Barbara Karant's new book, Small Dog, Big Dog.   I was familiar with Barbara's work with Greyhounds, and knew she was a talented dog photographer, but still, this is the high wire act of dog photography; framing big dogs and small dogs together, getting both (sometimes three or four) dogs to look at the camera, composing interesting angles, lighting, focus, coordinating the breeds, preventing dog fights.  "How did she do this?!"   I felt like I was asking a magician to reveal her secrets, but I had to know.   So I emailed Barbara to see if she would tell me what went into the making of her charming and ambitious new book.  Barbara graciously responded.  Here is our Q+A along with some of my favorite shots:

Moira McLaughlin: Where did you find the dogs? Did you have a casting call?

Barbara Karant:  I am involved with several kennels, vet practices, and training facilities because of my work with Greyhound rescue, so I put out the word through a variety of channels that I was looking for dogs for a new book.  I gave people guidelines of my needs and it just snowballed.  I asked for dogs to come with their best friends, big or small, and I got a huge number of responses.  I didn’t have a casting call, although one of the kennels had one for me and sent me all the results.  People were great helping to get the word out.  We also did a poster that loosely described the project with photo of a mastiff and a pug asking “Is Your Dog Model Material?”  We distributed it to the people who were willing to help us and they either posted the flyer or emailed it to their clients.  We did the same through my studio and sent it to anyone and everyone we knew with a dog.

MM: How did you decide which dogs would go together?

BK: In the end many of the dogs that appeared together in the pictures were not from the same households or had even met prior to the photo shoots.  I selected dogs to be photographed together based on looks and scale.  At the beginning of the project I established a whole set of criteria that I wanted to fill.  For example, I knew I wanted to do a shot with all brindle dogs, a shot juxtaposing fuzzy and hairless dogs, old and young dogs.  There were also specific breeds I wanted to see together like the Chinese Crested and the Bearded Collie or the Greyhound and the Pug.  I also included a lot of mixed breeds because they are so unique, plus many of the most popular dog breeds like Labs, Pit Bulls, Chihuahuas, and Vizslas.

Basically for each photo shoot I had a choreographed scenario of which dogs were coming when and being shot with whom.  I also had a rough outline of how I thought I would shoot the dogs.  I would have to say that the scheduling of the photography was almost more difficult than the photo shoots themselves.  The logistics of this project were very complex.  Additionally, we shot during the winter and spring and every time we had long-furred dogs like the Afghans, Collies, Tibetan Mastiffs, Newfoundlands, Old English Sheep dogs, or Bernese Mountain dogs, it either rained or snowed or both (no kidding) so they had to be “touched up” before going on set!  One kennel actually had a groomer on hand for us.  Sometimes people would cancel at the last minute or the dogs didn’t get along, so we just had to wing it on the day of the shoot.  The safety of the dogs was paramount in importance.  In the end it all worked out.  Sometimes the last minute combinations of dogs made for the best pictures.  We shot over 190 dogs, over 60 breeds and a multitude of mixed breeds.  We shot show dogs and rescues alike.  It was so rewarding and touching

MM: Any tricks of the trade for getting the dogs to stay in the same frame and look at the camera?

BK:  I am not a canine photographer.  I have come to this specialty in a unique way.  My area of expertise is in architecture and interiors and I began shooting dogs merely to give Greyhounds Only, the rescue group I work with, a continuing revenue stream from the use of my pictures.  We produced cards, t-shirts, and a variety of other products using my shots.  This is how I accidentally found another type of photography that I really enjoy and I have added animal photography to my specialty list.  I now have a subdivision of my business called Karant Canines.  It is pretty unexpected how things work out in life.

Here are some suggestions for photographing dogs:

• Either use available light or let the dog get used to a flash before trying to take pictures.  This might mean you don’t even take any pictures for the first 15 minutes you are “shooting” the dog.


• Get some assistance while you are shooting.  It is easier to have someone else engaging the dog while you are paying attention to taking the pictures. Or vice versa if you trust
  your helper to take good pictures.


• Have lots of high-value treats.  Forget the dog cookies; go straight to the roast chicken, steak, hot dogs, lunchmeat, cheese, and salmon or liver treats.  Every dog is different, so have a variety of enticements available.


• Have lots of funny noisemakers or squeaky toys or speak in tongues yourself.  A human is capable of making some really strange noises if it means getting results.  You might surprise yourself at what sounds you can make to get the attention of your dog.  Try it!


• Get down to the dog’s level for the best shots.


• Be very patient and wait for the picture to happen instead of trying to “make” the picture. The more relaxed and good-humored you are the better the shots will be.


• Make it really, really fun for the dog and it will be really fun for you too.  The best is when you are laughing so hard that you cannot trip the shutter.


• Last get some kneepads and practice doing squats or your legs are really going to hurt if you take pictures for any length of time.

MM:  Thank you, Barbara, for sharing your process and your tips.  After hearing more about how Small Dog, Big Dog came together I am even more amazed that that a photographer with a background in architecture pulled it off so beautifully.  Somehow your made your ability to "make it really, really fun for the dog" jump off the page and you created a book that it really, really fun for the reader too.  Brava!

Order your copy of Small Dog, Big Dog here.  A portion of the proceeds go to Morris Animal Foundation's Canine Cancer Campaign.

To learn more about Barbara Karant visit her website.

P.S. Don't forget that tomorrow, June 25, 2010, is Take Your Dog to Work Day.