‘It reminds me of the love I felt for my faithful companion’: Tony Hertz’s greatest telephone image | Images

Lolly – a chow-chow-cocker spaniel combine – was Tony Hertz’s canine for 15 years. “She had long black hair with a little white on her mouth, ears, eyebrows and feet, and a partially marbled tongue. She was quite cute,” Hertz says.

Hertz and Lolly have been residing in Pismo Beach, California, when he took this shot. At the time he was engaged on a pictures sequence and ebook primarily based round shadows, and he had taken her alongside on one in every of his common sundown walks. Over a career spanning three decades, Hertz has photographed queens, popes and a president, however this was an try at one thing extra private. The picture was taken on a grassy space subsequent to a Walmart. As Hertz sat down on a bench for a breather, he observed of their shadows that Lolly was wanting straight at him. “I positioned my phone so it couldn’t be seen in the shadow, composed the shot and then looked toward Lolly so that our profiles would be turned to each other,” he says. Hertz usually wears his brimmed hats when searching for out new parts for his sequence, “to make them consistent with a little noir look”.

Lolly died in November from continual kidney failure. “There’s a void in my home now,” Hertz says. “Though she lived a good long life, I still miss her very much. The photo reminds me of the love I felt for my faithful companion. She often shadowed me.”