Every touching pet picture has a story behind it. This one is no exception. The story is told by photographer, Amanda Twigg, below.
Briefly the story around the picture of Paul & the dogs goes as follows:
Storm is the German Shepherd. His parents breed pups for the police who take the best four pups of the litter and the rest go on sale. We were lucky enough to get Storm from one of these litters. He is a very good-looking dog and extremely clever. Shadow is a local breed in South Africa known as a "Boer Bull" - I'm honestly not sure of the history of the breed, although I think a Rhodesian Ridgeback is a very close comparison. We got Storm in December 1999 and Shadow in January 2000. This photo was taken in January 2000 when they were both still pups and had been living with us a very short time.
That particular day, Paul (my boyfriend then and fiance now) had been entertaining the dogs all day - and you know how much energy young pups have.... Well, I think Paul underestimated how long they could play. They were running round the house and Paul was throwing balls and frisbees, etc. for them. Eventually they were all worn out. Paul collapsed on the ground, exhausted by all the running around. The dogs must have thought this was just another game, and Shadow clambered on top of him while Storm lay down next to Paul. Under the warm South African sun, before you knew it - it was lights out for all three of them.
So I ran indoors, grabbed my Pentax point-and-shoot, zoomed in on the three of them dozing away and got the pic! At the time I was not even concentrating on context and subject, etc. - I just clicked.
When the picture came out, it was really like.... WOW! All my friends and family commented on it. I've had it enlarged and framed. The photo is so natural and unposed! Can you imagine trying to get two pups to lie still and pretend to sleep to get a shot like this?
Regards and THANK YOU for a wonderful, stunning, helpful site.
Amanda
|
