Aging Gracefully: The Importance of Gray Muzzle Pet Portraits
My Buddy and Me
“Dogs die so soon. I have my stories of that grief, no doubt many of you do also. It is almost a failure of will, a failure of love, to let them grow old — or so it feels. We would do anything to keep them with us, and to keep them young. The one gift we cannot give.”
Mary Oliver
I am doing a hard thing this morning. I am attempting to write a blog post about something that most of us never want to talk about. We open our hearts and our homes to creatures furry, feathered and scaled, form a relationship with these beings that is so much more than we could have imagined and then in a blink of an eye (it seems to me) we have to say goodbye. As Mary Oliver puts it, they are “gone now, from the world of particulars, the singular, the visible.”
Nick and Luath.
My older son was home for a visit a couple of years ago and as to be expected when your mom is a portrait photographer, I asked him to come up to my studio. He’s a pretty willing subject, mostly because I present it as if he’s doing me a favor by helping test out some new gear or a different lighting style or whatever I can come up with as an excuse to get him to open up in front of my camera. But this time I mentioned how our dog, Luath, was close to 17 years old and I didn’t know if he’d be with us the next time he visited. “Let’s make this memory for you,” I told him. I think you will be grateful that we didn’t let this opportunity pass us by.” Not long after that visit, our beloved Luath crossed the Rainbow bridge.
NY Yankee Dog
Creating portraits of aging pets and their humans has become one of my favorite things to photograph. In my Gray Muzzle sessions, I get to capture the beauty and dignity of your older companion and celebrate their unique personality and spirit.
Casey.
Our senior pets have left an indelible mark on our lives, and capturing their essence through portraits is a way of celebrating their legacy.
Allow me to create images of your older pets that will serve as a reminder of the joy, laughter, and love they've brought into your home, ensuring that their memory will live on long after they're gone.
Let’s create memories together.
In my Easter Bonnet
