Shaina Fishman doesn’t have to go too far to discover something cute and adorable. As an animal photographer she’s known for her humorous images of pets—both on location and in the studio. Shaina’s always wanted to publish a book of her furry friends but could never find the time to put together a proposal and approach publishers, so when Skyhorse Publishing reached out to her interested in doing a book together, she had the perfect opportunity to pitch some ideas she had been brainstorming. After six months of shooting and two months of post production, her book Between Two Dogs was released. The book in 144 pages explores the relationships between dogs, pairing adult dogs with puppies or two puppies together, and shows a variety of breeds like Golden Retrievers, Pugs, French Bulldogs, Dalmatians, and many more interacting, playing, yawning and cuddling for a nap. One of the major challenges for Shaina was not getting these pups to sit still for the camera, but rather casting the right pairs.
A major challenge was finding the right dog pairs. I worked with an agent who sourced all of the dogs to find a good mix of breeds that had just had litters. The puppies had to be not too young but also not too old. Some pairs she found but had just had puppies the week before so we had to wait 2 months to be able to get them in the studio. Or, a puppy was going to go to their new home in just a few days so we had to shoot right away.
Planning mostly involved the casting of the dogs and working around their schedules. Shaina shot on weekends to better accommodate the owners so they didn’t have to take off from work. The dogs were photographed on either white or color backdrops and Shaina had to strategize as to which color would match each dog without repeating backdrops.
When I began shooting I didn’t have all 30 pairs lined up, rather it went week by week. For example, I shot the corgi puppies early on and loved the blue with them. But, after that even if I wanted to use that same or similar color blue with other dogs I wouldn’t since I did not want to repeat any colors.
If you’re looking for a gift for you dog obsessed friend this holiday season we definitely recommend Shaina’s book. It’s filled with memorable images of our four legged friends and a variety of emotions and interactions that are both humorous and adorable, so go grab a copy today!
You can see more of Shaina’s work at shainafishman.com