Capturing a Rescue Dog's Dignified Spirit Through Timeless Fine Art Portraiture

Laura Khoudari (she/her) (00:00) Looking back on this experience, think the aspect I'm most grateful about is the memories I made actually doing the photo shoot. It's wonderful to have this gorgeous portrait. go, my God, this is incredible. You know, when people comment on the art, and that's great. And I love having this reminder of Buddy. But for me, actually, the memory of being in this session doing the photographs, I think, is the best part. Hi, I'm Laura Kadary and I'm a writer and my dog Buddy, who you can see behind me, he was a rescue and he was actually my first dog as an adult person. I was always a dog person and I was very excited to get my first dog. Unfortunately, Buddy did come to me ⁓ with a disease called Pythiosis, which is very hard to treat, but we had an amazing two months together and I gave him the best life I could in those two months. What drew me to Sarah Prawl and her portraits was how well she captured, or seemed to capture the personality of the different animals in the picture. And I really liked the idea of having some portraits done of Buddy not knowing at the time if we would have a long time together or a short time together. I wanted to capture Buddy at this time because our relationship was new. was just doing all these really fun things with him. And also he was like such a good natured upbeat dog. He actually had undergone ⁓ quite a few surgeries and procedures. And even in this picture, I chose to leave the shaved fur spots so that we could see like he was in the middle of that and he was still. regal and playful and fun and he was actually a puppy he wasn't even a year yet and I just I don't know it was a really fun time and I just wanted to It was really exciting to see Buddy portrayed this way. mean, in art, in my case, memorialized this way. ⁓ There were a lot of prints to choose from. The one I picked, he's just like looking right at the camera and he's looking really kind of sweet and calm yet dignified. And that's just how he was. I really felt like that captured a big part of his personality. I love to see Buddy's portrait there. At first I was a little nervous about having a large portrait of my deceased dog. But I see it and it just makes me really happy. It helps me kind of... continue to hold on to the wonderful energy he brought for those two months. What surprised me the most about my pet's photography session fun and lively it was and also how much I got to participate in it, helping him find those poses by attracting him. He was very food motivated and could be food motivated, so that's what we used. He loved it and being able to be part of the process was actually super fun. If somebody is hesitant, but sort of interested in trying out a portrait session, I would say go for it for sure. It's... ⁓ really fun process and they at the studio, the pets were made really comfortable. Buddy, who was very friendly, other dogs of all sorts of personalities are put at ease in the studio and I think have a good time.