The Buddy Project rolls on with a couple of city guys: Franklin and his furry friend Titus. You can read more about the origin of my project by clicking here. Titus might be one of the most well behaved pups I have ever worked with. He just moseys along right with you, even off leash, mostly ignoring the busy rush of people, other dogs, critters and cars whirling around him in the city. This sweet old boy is a rescue dog (yay!) and at the time of this shoot, had just barely gotten over a life-threatening case of the canine flu. Those of you in Chicago may recall that we had a large outbreak of canine flu this spring that was highly contagious and dangerous, and sadly a lot of pups didn’t survive it. Luckily Titus pulled through, and we were able to photograph him with his human bestie, Franklin.

As always for this project, I asked mom to describe both her “kids” in 3 words. I always love reading these, because these descriptors are always so perfect and I can see them and feel them when I’m shooting and watching these fun interactions between best friends. For this shoot, we started off inside and then headed out for a walk around the neighborhood, my old neighborhood in the city, one of my favorites.

As this project takes shape, there has been a common theme in almost every shoot that is really kind of fascinating to me. Almost every time, the child gets out a book and wants to read it to their dog. Or wants to show me a book about dogs. I provide little to no direction with these shoots other than nudging my subjects into good light if I can and calling their names once in a while, since I really want them to forget about me so that I can simply document what I’m seeing. It’ll be fun to see if this trend continues.

Titus: playful, respectful, obedient

Franklin: funny, sweet, free spirited

Once again, mom was right on with her descriptions!