I like dogs. Always have. With a few breaks here and there, mainly to recover from the death of a loved canine, I’ve always had a dog. Next to bananas, a good dog is the best thing you can have.

After decades of familiarity with hounds, if you possess normal intelligence and you’re observant, you will end up knowing more about dogs than any behavioural scientist knows, and more about the ways a dog can say, “Jeez pal, I’m glad to see ya!”

Like bananas, familiarity with an animal we befriended 14,000 years ago can enrich your life. It may also encourage you to photograph your own dog, or someone else’s, and become good at it, if only you work long enough and hard enough, which of course is the foundation of all successful photography.

In any event, the inescapable fact is that dogs do not always cooperate in the matter of sitting for formal portraits and might even exhibit resistance. Some dogs, often small ones, are also impervious to reason, and at times you’ll feel as if you’re trying to cross quicksand on a pogo stick. No matter how frantically you toot, whistle or squeak at them, the animal finds your attention less than flattering and there’s nothing you can about it, short of asking another dog if she would mind taking the picture for you.

What’s more, it’s sometimes difficult to tell if you really do have a dog’s attention. If a Doberman is looking at you, be assured, you have his attention. On the other hand, if a Tibetan mastiff is looking at you, his countenance is so inscrutable that his eyes might be looking in the right direction while his brain is wandering around the Potala Palace.

But don’t let any of this deter you. Many fine photographs of dogs have been made on the street with patience and a 50mm lens – those of Elliott Erwitt come to mind – and there are so many techniques applicable to ‘dography’ that the mission could keep you occupied for another 14,000 years.

The best-known dog photographer today is a young American lady named Kaylee Greer. Kaylee is talented, clever, and developed a technique that many now copy. Her super wide-angle, get-close-with-a-strobe technique is startling at first, but Kaylee is now famous in her industry and her work has started many young, and usually female photographers, in a new direction.

Kaylee also works hard to improve the lives of impounded dogs that might otherwise be euthanized should no-one give them a home. If you’re interested in the subject, Kaylee’s dog photographs are worth looking at. (Find her here.)

Not all of us can do what Kaylee does, nor can we afford the Canon R3, a range of RF lenses and the Profoto strobes and softboxes she uses. But that shouldn’t prevent us walking the streets with a camera, patrolling parks and beaches where dogs tend to congregate, and where their owners are overjoyed if you tell them their dogs are photogenic: “Oh my god, she’s beautiful”, and so on and so forth. My advice: tell the dog owner anything that gets you the picture. And don’t be ashamed; grovelling is useful.

Kaylee Greer needs ultra-fast auto focus, hence the R3,  but if you’re doing all this with a camera lower in the photo hierarchy, start by shooting static shots, making sure first that a naturally cautious animal will not react badly to you intruding on her space. Get to know the dog in the time you have. Be patient.

If you’re looking for candid rather than staged photographs then of course there’s no need to invade a dog’s space or talk to anyone. Do what you do on the street: walk quietly and carry a big idea. You don’t have to ‘blend in’ – how would you? – while in my experience, stalking or hip shooting only arouses suspicion in a Border collie or Kelpie, who operate at full power all the time and need no additional stimuli.

I photograph dogs because I enjoy it. I make no money from it, nor do I ty to, but some of the photographs in this feature might show you what can be achieved with basic equipment, luck – never underestimate luck – and persistence. I appreciate the interplay between human and dog. Occasionally I use a strobe, but that depends on the owner, the dog, and whether or not I can be bothered carrying all that crap around.

I’m a one camera, one lens man and anything more than that seems like too much hard work. The only strobed shot here is a close-up, shot with a 60W Godox speedlight in a 55cm silver Godox beauty dish. A speedlight doesn’t have enough power for this light modifier, 200W would have been more useful, but I too live in the lower end of the photo hierarchy so I go with what I’ve got.

The top image in this article – the picture of the man in the beach chair watching the sunset with a small dog on his lap – is deceptive. It’s a pretty picture, and the little dog looks harmless, but here, malice was afoot. The belligerent little sod tried to bite me every time I went anywhere near it. I got the shot, had it printed, stuck it in a frame, gave it to the bloke and never saw him or Little Sod again.

Promising to email shots of dogs to their owners is another painless way of getting permission to shoot a particular animal, while a business card with your name and email address on it helps break the ice. Setting up a strobe in a light modifier outdoors goes a long way in convincing any dog owner you’re a genius. And you are, so long as you know how to balance strobe with daylight.

I try to capture as much emotion in dog shots as I do in any street photograph, but emotion is what you feel, not what you see. Dog photographers are always telling you “focus on the eyes”, but in only one of my photographs can you see the eyes. In much of my photography then, emotion is independent of body parts. I took the picture because of what I felt, not what I saw, and the eyes had nothing to do with it.

To prove the point, the photo that means the most to me among these is the shot of my Border collie lying next to me while I’m recuperating from knee surgery. She stayed there for hours, when I couldn’t walk her or move much at all, an act of profound love, and worth remembering with a photograph, even one that would fail to evoke emotion in anybody else.

Does it matter that you’re alone in believing a subject is worthwhile? No, it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t matter who you are. A celebrity in his own right, Richard Avedon shot fashion and celebrities, not to bring light into the world of Irving Penn, who could shoot them well enough on his own, but because Avedon was compelled to photograph these subjects. He was, as they say, acting according to his lights.

Avedon’s most famous portrait was of the young German actor Nastassja Kinski who, in 1981, posed for him wearing a large Burmese python. Since the young lady was naked at the time, we can assume that this was a portrait and not a fashion spread.

Whether photographing pythons and dogs requires the same techniques I can’t say. Snakes have no external ears, but internal ones that sense vibration, so they don’t really ‘hear’ anything. As for using treats as an inducement to pay attention, would a snake respond in the same way as a terrier if offered a chicken neck? If in the same room, would they argue over possession, and would that in itself constitute a street photograph? Best not to find out. I’m a squib when it comes to large carnivorous snakes so I’d be making sure that me, the dog and the snake were never in the same room at the same time.

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