Want to see a nice cat? Just click here.

Mississauga, Brampton, Milton, Oakville, Burlington, Ancaster, plus Hamilton and Toronto.

"Dogs love to have their portraits taken. They're natural models, except when you get them posed perfectly, and then they get up, walk over, and lick your lens.  Roo, this means you!"                    Brian A. Kilgore   

The Environmental Portrait
A structured outdoor or indoor portrait, in a location that means something to your dog.

The Formal Portrait
Usually indoors, somewhat dignified, and carefully lit.

The Action Portrait
For dogs who love to run and jump.

All styles include several packages of various sizes of prints. And humans are welcome in some or all of the photographs.
Learn more.

I have three jobs.

Sometimes I'm a model, to show off photographic styles and locations.

Sometimes I write here, offering a dog's perspective on having our portraits taken.

And sometimes I'll come along to a photo shoot if the dog being photographed needs someone to run and play with.

The Environmental Portrait
A structured outdoor or indoor portrait, in a location that means something to your dog.

Andie the Dalmatian has three favorite places.

She loves Post Park in Oakville.

A green blanket on the back deck at home, but only when the weather is nice.

And the rolling hills made up of a pink sheet placed over half a dozen cushions, in her living room, where she stays "on vigil" when her humans are out.

Environmental portraits show not only the dogs, but some of the area surrounding them. And the dogs may want people in the photographs with them.

Some dogs have favorite indoor spots; places they may share with humans.

Environmental portraits are quiet and relaxed. If the dogs were running, these would be action portraits.

Several locations can be included in an environmental portrait session, and sessions may easily expand to include either, or both, formal portraits and action portraits.

Planning, packaging and pricing information

The dogs are clearly the stars in the formal portrait, standing out from a background chosen to accent their looks and personalities.

Formal portraits can be taken indoors or out.

Outdoors, we have portable backgrounds, or we simply choose some elements of nature. ature provides many beautiful but simple backgrounds.

Indoors, quality, professional, lighting  equipment, or existing daylight patterns in a home, ensures a beautiful portrait, to the same standards appropriate to fine portraiture of other family members.

Planning, packaging and pricing information

Your dogs, running, jumping, A fast dog can be beautiful, sleek and smooth, and a fast moving puppy can simply be hilarious.

We know and understand dogs, and work with them to show their beauty and strength, in action.

Skill and experience matters, and equipment matters. We've got all that matters.

Formal portraits can be taken indoors or out.

A puppy on a blanket, or a big dog in a huge field, we work happily on location with your dogs, and perhaps the dogs' human friends.

Planning, packaging and pricing information

Your dogs, running, jumping, A fast dog can be beautiful, sleek and smooth, and a fast moving puppy can simply be hilarious.

We know and understand dogs, and work with them to show their beauty and strength, in action.

Skill and experience matters, and equipment matters. We've got all that matters.

Formal portraits can be taken indoors or out.

A puppy on a blanket, or a big dog in a huge field, we work happily on location with your dogs, and perhaps the dogs' human friends.

Planning, packaging and pricing information

Big Dexter, a Rhodesian Ridgeback, and Ocean, a Great Dane, both love to romp with Andie.

Ask about special pricing for multi-dog packages

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE TAKE PICTURES

A single, refined, dignified photograph for over the mantle? Six action shots to be individually framed and hung as a series on the den wall? A set of mix and match shots, with the dog and various family members individually and all together?

For indoor pictures, we look at the best locations in your home, paying attention to furniture placement, clear spaces, natural light at different times of day, and how, where and why we would add our own fashion-photo style flash units. We agree on whether we want our backgrounds, or show the dog's home.

There are similar assessments for outdoor portraits. In your yard, or elsewhere?. The time of day matters, because of the position of the sun. And, for action, bright sun always is better than a cloudy day.

For outdoor action pictures we meet at a safe location, where the dog can run without a leash and harness.

If people will be in the pictures, we discuss clothing, and even hairstyles and makeup.

And, of course, we want to meet the dog.

There's often two of us; the photographer and the dog wrangler with the treats, squeeky toys and soft voice that encourages the dog to pose.

There's a lot of rolling on the floor by dog and photographer, laughing by owner and wrangler, confusion and fun and clicks and flashes.

More often than not, there's one final lick of the photographer's face, and we're done.

A few days later, the proofs are ready.

Digital technology has revolutionized photography in the 21st century.

Casual snapshots are easier than ever before -- an OK picture of a simple subject is easy for anyone.

But, once past the amateur snapshot level,  the technology is extraordinarily advanced, and complicated. We understand it, we use it, and we even teach it.

But if modern digital photography, especially of dogs, is complicated and difficult, arranging for a picture of your pet, and perhaps some people close to your canine friend, should be simple. Two packages. Two prices. A few extras if you want them.

We meet with the dogs and their people to learn a bit about the personalities -- canine and human -- of those who will be photographed,

Favorite places, preferred photography style, suggested props, and more, are discussed. We talk about clothes for the people -- and the few dogs who look good in a suit. Olive is very stylish in plaid, and Andie is very sporty in red

Packages are very flexible.

Clients will receive for review between 15 and 30 proof images. There will be more proofs if all three portrait styles -- Formal, Environmental and Action --  are captured.

Inside or outside

$750 plus GST for a package

Both indoors and outdoors

$875 plus GST for a package

Additional prints from frames ordered with the package, at the same time.

5x7  $3.50
8x10 or 8 x 12  $5
11 x14 or 12 x 18  $10

See "The Fine Print" below

What's in a package?

Your choice of some combination of different size prints. Typically, two or three large 11 x 14  or 12 x 18 prints, half a dozen medium 8x10 or 8x12 prints, and up to a dozen 4x6 prints, from up to six different frames.

We try to keep this to a minimum.

Deposits and payment
One third upon booking, one third when photos are taken, one third when prints are delivered.

Proofs
Brian A. Kilgore will normally choose between 15 and 30 photos from among those taken, and will have these printed to 4x6 for the client to select final prints from. If there are many set-ups -- indoors, outdoors, formal and informal -- the number of proofs will increase. Proofs will have minimal editing. Proofs remain the property of the photographer.

Photograph sizes and shapes
Photographs may be cropped differently depending on what's called the aspect ratio. A full-frame photo, for instance, enlarges to 8x12 inches, requiring some of the image to be cropped off for an 8x10 print.

Standard print paper sizes are 4x6 inches, 5x7 inches, 8x10 inches, 8x12 inches, 11x14 inches, and 12 x18. Depending on cropping, images can extend to the page edges, or can "float" on the sheet. When ordering prints, please discuss your framing plans.

Longevity
Our prints are made on premium Fuji, Epson or other long life papers, designated by the manufacturers as providing more than four decades of future life. Because printing is not done by me, print life is not guaranteed by the photographer

Reproduction rights and copyright
Clients receive written agreement permitting them to order commercial reproduction of the specific images chosen for the package ordered. A DVD or CD or other digital form of these images is included in the package.

The photographer retains rights to use the images for self-promotion and editorial purposes. Any third party advertising or commercial use of the images by client or photographer will be discussed and agreed.

Additional prints
Additional prints of the images chosen for the package may be purchased by the client from independent labs, or ordered from the photographer. There is a $25 digital post-processing charge for each file that is not part of the original package but that requires computer processing prior to printing. Print charges for package and non-package prints are the same.

Other issues
The fine print above seems to cover legal questions that arise from time to time in Canadian portraiture photography. Please call with any other questions.

At the list studio on the list, in an old house just five minutes from my grandparents, I met Stan Comeau who hired me for the same money I could have made baby-sitting. Fifty cents an hour, and that was terrible money, even back then.

But the job was great, and Stan let me shoot daily newspaper pictures for The Moncton Times and The Moncton Transcript, and in French for L'Evangeline. I shot weddings, and commercial photos -- remember the Citroen Ds with the up and down suspension?

My professional photos, of people, places and things have included prosciutto in Palo Alto and Bar-B-Q ducks in San Francisco's Chinatown; mustard in New York; a former speaker of the House of Commons photographed on the floor of the House; computers in Whitehorse; and on and on.

Welcome to Dogs and their Humans, a site about dog photography by Brian Kilgore in the Toronto - Oakville - Burlington area.

The more time I spend with great dogs, the more I realize how important these pets are to their owners.

That's why I've expanded my photography business to include portraits, in several styles, of dogs, including dogs with their humans.

The Environmental Portrait
A structured outdoor or indoor portrait of your dog, in a location that means something to your dog.

The Formal Portrait
Usually indoors, with a simple or elaborate background, carefully lit.

The Action Portrait
For dogs who love to run and jump.

All styles include several packages of various sizes of prints. And humans are welcome in some or all of the photos you select.

 Details soon. Learn lots more...

The Beagle is my friend Sparky. The white dog is Willow, who is deaf and likes to eat groceries
right out of the bags as they arrive from the store. Andie, the Dalmatian, is my number one model,
and she loves to run and tussle with other dogs.

Pallas, in the upper left, has passed on, but this portrait with her owner is a prized family
possession. Willow, in the top picture, is now the family dog. Andie, with her owner in the
middle photo, is not related to Pallas, even though they come from the same breeder and
both have the same black right ear. Beau, with the corkscrew tail, was Andie's first friend
when she moved to the city from the farm where she was raised. And Barley, the biggest
Lab I've ever met, looks like a Sumo wrestler when she and Andie tussle.