As a commercial animal photographer I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work on amazing photography projects.  Once in a while a project comes up that is truly out of this world.  Last year I was approached by Canadian Tire and their creative agency, Jackman, to create images for the packaging of the new Paws Up! brand – a new line of dog and cat foods exclusively available at Canadian Tire.  The photos needed to capture happy dogs and cats, which is pretty standard for packaging.  What set these photos apart was that the animals needed to look like they had their paws in the air to go in line with the Paws Up! brand name.  This would be a real challenge!

I absolutely loved the idea so I accepted the job, but I had to figure out a way to capture paws in my photographs.  After much brainstorming with Angus, my studio’s resident animal handler, we decided that the only way to achieve the look we needed was to photograph the animals from below.  Over two days we designed and constructed a raised plexiglass platform that dogs and cats could stand on and that I could photograph from underneath.  The platform had to be tall enough to obtain the focal length that I desired.  I also needed to mount a backdrop above the platform.  Needless to say we required a substantial space to pull this off.  We elected to work out of The Neighbourhood Studio in Toronto, which was sufficiently spacious for the job and is also a comfortable and stylish space to entertain clients.

Now that our setup was ready we had to convince our animals that it was safe to walk on a see-through floor.  We hired V. Hessing, a veteran animal trainer from Toronto’s busy film industry and the owner of V’s Talented Animal Performers, to source a range of dogs and cats and to handle them during the shoot.  Over four days of photography and with endless treats, toys, and patience, we successfully created amazing photographs that captured the essence of the Paws Up! brand.

Paws Up! dog and cat foods have recently launched and are available exclusively at Canadian Tire stores across Canada.  We are proud to have played an important role in the launch of this exciting new brand and look forward to seeing more Paws Up! products in the future.

A commercial photography studio is always a crazy environment to work in, particularly when you specialize in working with animals. No project illustrates this better than the photos I created for Misfits dog treats packaging. I was approached by Mars Petcare’s Canadian division, who were searching for a photographer that could capture the silly, goofy, and all around hilarious nature of our canine best friends for their Misfits brand.

The shoot was bound to be a challenge, but I knew it would be a fun project to work on.  In order to succeed I needed to find dogs that loved to let loose and loved to be photographed.  I worked with V’s Talented Animal Performers to source a range of wacky dogs.  Over three days in my Toronto studio our chosen dogs were running, jumping, and slobbering all over the place.  In the end I captured amazing photos of dogs at their goofy best.  Mars Petcare was thrilled with the images that I created for them, which can be found on Misfits dog treat packages at retailers across Canada.

Last fall I was approached by one of the biggest players in the pet food industry about a holiday season photography campaign they were working on.  Mars Petcare was planning a series of social media advertisements to promote their Pedigree, Misfits, and Cesar dog brands, as well as their Temptations cat brand.  I’d created the photography for their new Canadian MisFits packaging so they were familiar with my work.

The theme of the campaign was that your pets would treat you during the holidays if they could, so you should treat your pets.  We came up with a series of scenarios where dogs and cats had tried to help out with traditional holiday tasks, but ultimately ended up causing a bit of trouble.  Mars Petcare loved our ideas so the job was a go.

The project was already going to be difficult, but to make things even more complicated the client decided they wanted short video clips to accompany the photos.  We’d need to setup additional lighting gear and would need to shoot each animal twice.  This was going to be a very hard project, but I couldn’t wait to get started.

I needed our pets to interact with holiday scenes in order to capture the photos I was aiming for.  We worked with the talented stylist Jason Hatton of P1M to style each scenario.  We decided that our dogs and cats would be wrapping gifts, hanging lights, baking cookies, decorating the christmas tree, and posting holiday cards.  Jason did an incredible job of making the scenes come to life.  I worked with my trusty animal trainer Angus to source and handle the animals on set.  We worked out of Toronto’s gorgeous Neighbourhood studio.

At the end of a very long day, my team succeeded in creating cute and hilarious photos that would work perfectly for the campaign.  My client was thrilled with the images and videos, which they leveraged to generate lots of social media attention as part of their important holiday season marketing efforts.