22ndMore dog in car photography
Been doing more shoots for my forthcoming exhibtiion on Dogs in Cars.
I put an ad on gumtree and found a women via who had 5 huskies and a rather characterful Ford car. She lived in a small house in south London with well chewed sofas, a carpet covered in husky hair but no sleds in sight.
Sure enough the huskies were MENTAL. They couldn't be let off the lead - in fact only two coudl go out at once for fear they would escape. I asked for all five to put in the car and it all went a bit wrong.
Within five minutes the car was steamed up, the windows were layered with saliva that was encrusted with hair (how the hair on the window??) and the car was visibily moving up and down with the dogs running in circles inside andbeping hte horn when their backsides bumped the steering wheel. I had the camera on tripod figuring that if needed to I could comp together two near-identical shots but because the car moved up and down so much it made this difficult.
We couldn't clean the windows because it was a real danger to open the door even sligtlly for fear that they would escape. Going in the car, even with just an arm, risked catastrophe, and it was a little like...
(imagine the following misplaced similes)
opening the lid on a shark infested pool
opening the door of a lift after a fat man has farted in it
opening the lid of a small jar of jam that contains a condiment alien that can devour you
In any case, you get my point, YOU DIDN'T WANT TO OPEN THE DOOR.
We tried to feed them through a gap in the window but it didn't keep them any more still.
And another problem, the huskies couldn't stop flopping their tongues out. I wanted them to look feirce. Fair enough, there's five of them in the car (don't worry they didn't stay in for long) but still they coudl have POSED.
I was told it was possible to get them to howl.
Howl ?
Great! how?
Well, apparently they howled when they listened to Sinead O'Connor's great masterpiece:Nothing compares 2U.
How about something else?
Me howling?
no.
Elton John?
no.
Only sinead.
There I was, five minutes later, in a council estate car park with 5 huskies in a blue ford 1989 car with Sinead O'Connor blasting out of my speakers at near fuil volume, the camera release cable in one hand a slice of tesco's ham in the other. It was 10pm and the neighbours peered round their net curtains. And did the huskies howl?
Did they hell.
So I started howling . I always do this to get a reaction from the dogs I photograph. It didn't make the scene any less surreal. But still no howling from the huskies.
So we turned the volume up more. NOTHING COMPARES 2 BLOODY U....
Oh bugger, this is ridiculous. No good.
In the end we had to make do with a few less dogs in the car. Some out takes....
For the rest of the images from the series come to the exhibition. Opening night 21st October at hte printspace. Huge gorgeous prints from the various shoots that i have done with Pro my assistant over hte last few months. Will officially blog about it soon. Stay tuned. Keep howlin'.
PS.
OMG that simile about the fart in the lift has come true in front of my very nose. Moose got a bad stomach a few days back and every now and then lets out the most silent-but-violents. PhewwEY! My good god, can that dog fart for britain. I love the way they just don't car, not even a raise fluffy eyebrow or the polite flick of the tail. Just a silent phuuuuu and a minute later i have to put on my ebola bio-mask.
Moose, you're so sleeping on the sofa tonight.