Pippin is a Cavapoo, small enough to fit in your hands but big enough in personality to command a room. She’s also a certified therapy dog, which means she’s trained to do what she does best – be present with people and offer comfort. What you wouldn’t know from that is that until the day of her Session, she’d never actually been to the city before.
Janine lives down the coast, and she brought Pippin up to Melbourne specifically to have a Session with me in the Southbank area. It wasn’t a random choice. Janine used to live and work near there, and she wanted to capture memories of her new dog in a place that was part of her old life. Two phases of her life, together in photographs.
I met them at sunrise on a Saturday in late November, which meant the city was quieter than usual. Pippin arrived ready to run. We put her on a long line and gave her about ten to fifteen minutes to burn off that initial burst of energy, to be her crazy little self without restraint (that’s all she wanted to be honest). Once she’d had that, she settled quickly and was ready to work.
I started in the park, where the grass and flowers created the softest foreground against Pippin’s colouring, and behind her you could still see the urban backdrop – Crown Casino and the bridge, the street lights, the shape of the city. Little dog, big setting, perfectly balanced.
From there I walked Janine and Pippin over to Southbank proper, where I moved through the restaurants and cafes. There were planter boxes breaking up the foot traffic, and Pippin looked absolutely precious peeking around them. One of the restaurants was closed, so we was able to use their alfresco area. I asked Janine directly if I could photograph her with Pippin – “I don’t know when I’ll get this opportunity again, can I please get this photo of you together?” She’d had a back injury years prior that she was still managing, so I suggested we use one of their stools. That way Pippin could sit in her lap, they could be together without strain, and the raised position meant Pippin was part of the environment with Janine rather than just the lower part of the frame. The chairs and closed umbrellas were still visible with their colour, and the planted boxes gave us soft colour to work with.
Once I’d finished there, I moved to the railing next to the river for the final set of images – Pippin raised up, the CBD skyline behind her in the morning sun, the light hitting the buildings and creating colour and shape and depth.
The whole session had this calm, easy quality to it, even when a security situation was happening in the background and police were on their way. On the surface everything felt relaxed, but underneath I was acutely aware of making sure I had captured everything she wanted.
Janine was really proud of how well Pippin handled such a typically busy environment. When I showed her the unedited version of the photo of the two of them on the stool, her reaction was immediate. Oh my god, it’s gorgeous. The way that her and Pippin were looking at each other was so sweet. She could see the potential in that moment, could see that what I was capturing wasn’t just about being in the urban environment together, but about the connection between them.
As we were wrapping up and getting ready to part ways, Janine said something I think about often. She said she could see everything that I’d learned and was capable of doing coming through in the communication leading up to the Session, in how I was placing Pippin, in the care and love for what I do. That kind of feedback matters because it’s someone who already knew me, seeing the growth and the expertise I’ve spent the last few years developing.
When Janine saw her images, she knew exactly what she wanted. A Memory Box to sit on her table, something she could flip through and hold onto. And artwork for her mum’s wall – a framed piece that would live in her mum’s home permanently. She chose to give a photo from the Memory Box to her mum showing Pippin at full personality, ears flying, running straight at the camera; and a posed portrait to display on her wall.
When Janine’s feedback questionnaire came back, it was clear the session had hit the mark. She felt genuinely invested in the whole experience – from the way I communicated with her leading up to the session, to how engaged Pippin was on the day, to the moment she saw the images themselves. The photos had turned out the way she’d hoped, with that clarity and detail coming through in Pippin’s fur. It was exactly what she’d needed.
