I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration lately and one of things I do when struggling is to turn to my ever growing collection of books on dog photographs. 

Today I’ve been looking through some additions to my collection, this one full of Victorian and Edwardian portrait photos going back to 1850. Photography using the collodian process which after years of experimentation, became standard was only invented in 1950 and the word ‘photography’ was only coined in 1939, just 11 years before.

So dogs have been photographed on their own and with families as a record of their existence since the very beginning of photography so it goes to show it’s not a new thing like some on the internet would lead you to believe. No flashy cameras, no clever lenses, no photoshop, no lighting as we know it, using glass plates and chemicals with very long exposure times, meaning the subjects had to stay perfectly still for many minutes at a time. 

This is one of the reasons why portraiture became popular as moving subjects just couldn’t be captured at the time. So although the images look simple the required skill, precision, knowledge (this would have seemed like magic when first shown) and a lot of patience.

Coco also seems to be enjoying them although I’m not sure he knows what he is looking at.