Dogs, as any pet parent knows, can have just as many expressions as kids, often very human in their nature. Here is some new work finding that expressive nature.

What a glorious day it turned out to be. It wasn’t without it’s travails, but we got everything we needed and wrapped precisely as the sun went behind that last ridge on our horizon. Ruby, our Belgian Malinois was heroic in her performance and never once asked for a union break! After working with her we will most definitely reconsider our stance on hiring only trainers for TV and film. No wonder K9 officers around the country rely on this breed–they are just packed with energy. Here are some behind the scenes shots of our shoot, courtesy of Chris Rady (the best photo assistant a guy could ask for).

Location scouting is perhaps one of the most enjoyable tasks I still take on myself in our productions. Perhaps I’m a bit of a control freak, but I insist on getting the feel and vibe of a place if we are going to be shooting there. I want to know if the sun is going to go behind a rock cornice at a certain time of day or that a river is turning in the right direction in conjunction with a majestic background while keeping the ideal lighting scenario and, if that isn’t enough, making sure it is accessible for a production crew.  The more exotic the location, the more excited I become for the challenges of the shoot.

We recently were hired by Brighton Agency of St. Louis to photograph a Belgian Malinois running in a river preferably with Half Dome behind him at Yosemite National Park for California Natural Dog Food. Simple enough task—contact the National Park Service and get permits, right?

Alas nothing is ever easy, especially when dealing with government officials who don’t always (re: hardly ever) have your best interest in mind.  After several weeks of back and forth with a “by the books” neophyte running the permit office (if we were going to even put a toe in the water to check the temperature that would be another whole set of approval steps), someone out there actually determined there really isn’t ANY flowing water in Yosemite in the late autumn. This took 2 weeks! Seems the rivers below Sacramento are pretty dry heading into winter, while the northern rivers have manmade controlled flow dams in place, allowing for river flow all year round.

So we needed something majestic to replace the granddaddy of national parks and still be able to shoot in California. After a fairly exhaustive amount of online research and some rock solid information from my river guide and new friend, Julie Stanley of Todd Stanley Productions, we were led to a stunning and oft overlooked area of Northern California called the Trinity Alps, specifically near the cities of McCloud and Castella. Here Castle Crags State Park and Burney Falls show enough splendor to rival some of the most famous landmarks in the U.S. We went on a three-day trek and a few wild goose chases (we discovered park rangers often like to send you on these) to find some of the most beautiful wilderness I’d ever seen. Getting permission to photograph a dog running through all of this beauty? Well, that’s a different story.

In short the local district manager of the Ranger Station there decided he would need a month to “put things together” to approve any kind of production. In most places within California any production of fewer than 10 people will be seen as a still shoot and not warrant a thorough permit process. Apparently he didn’t get the message and despite any pleading negotiating tactics on our part, he remained steadfast in his power play. Fortunately through a friend of a friend contact at the ad agency, we were able to secure permission within 24 hours at the State Park level that included Burney Falls. The moral of the story is to avoid any area that involves federally protected lands and deal with the agencies that run the state/regional-governed areas. They are more likely to want to help and are usually genuinely interested in what you are doing. After a long and arduous search we settled on two locations that we feel will give us  the best day of shooting we could ask for and fell into place for us beautifully.

Created by the very talented Stu Garret  from The Halo Group in New York City, we thought he and the team did a fantastic job with the imagery and copy writing. Apparently the client was thrilled. You can catch the pig oinking on some banner ads floating around out there.