For me, photographing dogs all started when I moved to Canberra in August 2006. I decided that I wanted to volunteer my time and photography to an organisation which saved dogs from death row and fostered them until forever homes could be found. The organisation is called ACT Rescue and Foster (ARF).

I started off taking photos of dogs for their website. Typically the turnover every month was about 50 dogs, so I usually only got given the ’slow moving dogs’ to photograph. You know… the dogs that had been in foster care for 12 months or more because they didn’t look so pretty and apparently not many people want an ugly dog. Anyway, the joy I found in this process was that I would manage to capture the beauty of every dog I had the pleasure of photographing. I would usually get an email from the foster carer about a week or so after the photos had been taken to inform me that the dog had found a forever home. To say it was inspiring to be able to help in this way is a complete understatement. 

So that’s were it all began….taking photos like these in my less than photogenic backyard to help out a charity doing great work. And the rest, they say, is history.