Shelter Animals

Through photography, I, like many other photographers work with city shelters and private organizations to try and connect shelter animals with loving new homes. In Los Angeles alone, there are over 100 independent rescue organizations, all utilizing photos and videos to network animals into the arms of potential permanent homes. In most cases, time is of the essence,so it's important to differentiate one scruffy terrier from the next. Some people choose costumes, others use props, my approach is minimal. I choose to focus more on the animal in hopes of illustrating their true personality. Photographing shelter animals is a difficult task since the photos are usually taken in a shelter environment which can be a very confusing, and stressful place for the animals. Considering the large volume of animals that come into the shelter, very little editing is done to the photos. Please forgive any imperfections, you may see in the gallery below. The process started out slow, but within a few weeks, my volunteer team and I managed to nail down the process. We capture 30-40 animals in about 3 hours each session, and somehow manage to get some really fun results, don't ya think?