Gary Parker's CatDog Photography

Home
United States
Leaburg, OR
Gary Parker's CatDog Photography

Genuine photojournalistic "moments" and portraits of Cats, Dogs and their Humans for local Eugene, Oregon area pet owners and advertising agencies

01/22/2018

If I'd had a net and more time to catch this beautiful little feral kitty we spotted at a freeway rest stop, he'd be living with us now! This guy's so cute, someone's bound to take him home.

09/24/2016

Last month I was photographing an ad campaign for SJPD, this day shooting bomb sniffing dogs at San Jose Intl airport, an awesome gig! However, I wasn't prepared for the amazing 99.9% accurate "Dof", a German shorthaired pointer, to go positive on MY camera gear bags, pictured here. Dof never stops sniffing til he gets a positive then he simply looks at his police officer. Uh..............those are MY camera gera bags! WTH!!?? I told the officers "if there's explosives in my bad I want to know!" so I opened the bags just to see what the dog might be causing Dof to react??? Matches? No. A lighter? No. A piece of colored gel that's got singe marks from hot lights on it??? No. The officers were not alarmed and presumed it a very rare false positive...or maybe there was previously something in my bag. Hmm...

09/19/2016

Aslan, a kicked-back Maine C**n, blurs himself when he doesn't wish to be seen.

09/10/2016

I've been absent, traveling, riding mountain bikes and just staring at crystal clear rivers and hanging with blue chicken pals in California and Oregon. Ironically, this blue chicken - Todd - in Penn Valley, CA lays green eggs.

07/07/2016

During a helicopter shoot for San Jose PD last weekend, I was stunned to discover this corral and a 300 acre farm smack in the middle of San Jose, CA, America's 10th largest city where urban sprawl is growing day by day. Turns out the land owner - Walter Cottle Lester whose family owned the property since the 1800s - donated his 237 acre ranch to San Jose just prior to his death at 88 rather than accepting $500 million from developers. It seems Mr Lester felt it important for city kids to be able to see a working farm & ranch in the middle of the city. Very cool! From the air this ranch leaps out from amidst dense housing surrounding on all sides.

06/30/2016

Hysterical! Jack Russell Terriers are incredibly tenacious little dogs! No surprise the world record for speed balloon popping goes to a Jack! I once did an ad for pet insurance where a dog needed to jump high in front of its' human so we got a Jack Russell. That little dog jumped 4' straight up about 50 times in a row leaving me with no excuse if I failed to nail the photograph. Jack's are outrageously quick, athletic and curious/mischievous. I think I want a Jack but wonder if he'd outsmart me constantly.

05/17/2016

Cana, a 6 month old American Alsatian puppy - aka Direwolf Dogs - satisfies her puppy curiosity by checking out the view up through a doorknob. Curiosity is not limited to cats!

04/11/2016

This recent Savoy magazine cover photograph of Microsoft Chairman of the Board John Thompson with his gorgeous spaniels made at his Woodside, CA estate just struck me as a perfect example of "how I got into pet photography," a question I hear often. I never tried to be a pet photographer until the first call from Iams-Eukanuba then Purina, etc. Rather, I was a photojournalist who never failed to include the dog when photographing people such as in this portrait of John Williams, a Silicon Valley icon. The story has zero to do with John's dogs but they're gorgeous and they were there PLUS if you love dogs, it shows, so let's show folks this side of John's personality! I just always felt the family dog or cat ironically humanized human beings, ie, they give people more soul. I simply never saw a dog I didn't photograph during my years as a photojournalist - great props! Dogs are such an awesome common bond!

03/15/2016

How many times have we all tried to photograph a perfect rainbow when there's nothing cool to place in the foreground? I've chased rainbows with a camera for years in an effort to find Shangra La on a nearby hilltop ~OR~ anything beautiful to couple with that special rainbow. 99.999% of the time the only thing in the foreground is a billboard, power lines or something equally ugly. After finding nothing picturesque behind the white fence I returned to the car only to realize our direwolf dog Dear Prudence looks great in front of a rainbow!

01/26/2016

I LOVE BAD CATS that scratch & bite as a terrific challenge to tame and photograph! I bat a very high percentage at cat taming to the point I can almost guarantee a cool pic of any "bad" cat, especially in private homes! This silver/tabby American Shorthair - working a Purina cat chow photo shoot in Hollywood - took issue with my camera in his face. When cats try to scratch or bite I remain calm and slowly persistent, never making direct eye contact. If you really want a cool pic of an ornery cat, never back down. Persist and remain passively aggressive. This bad cat is now on a cat food bag on some grocery aisle. Nailed!!!

01/14/2016

This new Popular Photography book contains three chapters about shooting Cats & Dogs featuring ideas and techniques by Gary Parker's CatDog Photography alongside a variety of subject matter and other topics as photographed and explained to Popular Photography by the pros who made the pics. There's lots of basic information alongside general ideas for making more interesting photographs. These kinds of easy-to-understand books with short but concise chapters any amateur (or pros eternally looking for good ideas) can easily understand are precisely the sort of books that provided much of my own education in photography. I get nothing if you buy this book. Cool book! I guess it goes without saying my "portraits" in this book are of dogs and cats.

01/10/2016

Dear Prudence, our own American Alsatian - aka Direwolf Dog - is a perfect model of mellowness. On mornings when the weather is nice I open the front door so Prudence can sit on the porch watching folks walk their dogs. Since American Alsatians are pack dogs by nature, Prudence has zero desire to run away - pack dogs run TO the pack, not away, so she simply sits enjoying hanging out. American Alsatians are the first-ever large breed to be developed entirely as human companion dogs.

Address

Leaburg, OR

Website

http://www.CatDogPhotography.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Gary Parker's CatDog Photography posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Gary Parker's CatDog Photography:

Name:

Email:

Message:

Shortcuts

Want your business to be the top-listed Photography Service in Leaburg?