Underdogs Underwater: How Dog Breath Foundation Uses Photography to He

By Kaylee Greer

The canine explodes by way of the floor. Half in air. Half underwater. Suspended between two worlds. In the magic of that not possible second, {a photograph} can do greater than seize consideration… it could possibly change a life.

A canine perches on a submerged rock in Lake Tahoe © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Every Shelter Dog Deserves to Dream

A shelter canine sits behind the bars of its cage, typically forgotten… or left behind. As the solar makes one other journey throughout the sky and the earth spins on its axis exterior of the shelter partitions, they dream of the world’s huge open areas, of recent, swirling air, and the magic of journey.  

See, the spirit of canine was by no means made to be confined to a cage. No, it’s the surface air {that a} canine’s wild coronary heart was made for. A rugged world the place its ancestors roamed freely, throughout tens of hundreds of miles of boreal forests, jagged mountains, huge open plains and windswept tundra. A world the place canines belong. 

Posing completely in Banff © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

And so, as they wait inside a stark, gray concrete constructing, staring out from behind the bars of their cages, whereas one more potential household passes them by – they dream. They dream of yellow sunshine, of snouts touching water, of paw pads making contact with the recent grime of earth, of tails wagging by way of wild gusts of air. Every shelter canine deserves these goals. And all these goals deserve their second to come back true.

For me – these are precisely the stakes that I do know stability within the ether each time I take a photograph of a long-overlooked shelter canine. A canine who has been ready months – perhaps even years – for somebody to lastly discover him. 

Wild splashes in Lake Tahoe © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

The intense reality is that generally one singular eye-catching adoption picture is the one factor standing between him and his second probability. With stakes this excessive, I can’t afford to make selections that might lead to run-of-the mill photographs. There’s no room for photographs that may have the potential to be ignored. They merely should explode off the web page. Water droplets and all.

Who may resist these faces? © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

The Mission of Dog Breath Foundation

It was within the spirit of this very problem that I created The Dog Breath Foundation – a non-profit with a mission to journey throughout America seeking long-term shelter canines who desperately want their tales instructed. A mission to take shelter canines out of their cages, and into the world on their ‘Greatest Adventures’. To marry the wild, untamed magic of canine with the epic, chest-thumping pure great thing about the world  – to seize their true spirits in once-in-a-lifetime photographs that may stand to inform the magnitude of their tales. The Dog Breath Foundation was constructed with an unshakable perception that pictures is immeasurably highly effective, and inside that energy is the unbelievable potential to avoid wasting a life.

The concept is that this: If we are able to create adoption photographs for neglected shelter canines that merely can’t be ignored then pictures can maintain the dear energy to get them seen, and in the end to level them dwelling. 


A canine with an assistive machine poses in Lake Tahoe © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Telling these essential tales of canines who haven’t any voice to talk for themselves has been my life’s work. Over the course of the final 16 years, in over a dozen nations, in limitless numbers of animal shelters, I discovered myself asking the identical query time and again: “If this photo is the singular chance for this dog to finally be seen by the world at large – then how do I shoot it with enough impact to make people care? To make them look? To make them consider this dog for a few fleeting seconds?” Because making somebody cease and really see the soul with the intense mild of hope flickering inside its eyes –  that is the important thing. That is the second than every little thing can change. When somebody makes house of their coronary heart to start to contemplate a canine to be price loving. That is the start of a second probability. 

Lake Tahoe © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

How Underwater Photography Makes the Difference

With thousands and thousands of pictures posted on-line each millisecond, what might be executed to create photographs that stand out from the noise? How does one really seize the spirit of canine in a method that does them justice? 

It was these questions that led on to an sudden innovation in my canine pictures. Enter: Ikelite. Suddenly, an entire new world of water, magic, refraction, and wonder was unlocked.



Behind the scenes in Banff // Kaylee shoots with a Sony a7 III inside an Ikelite 200DL Underwater Housing and a Canon 5D III inside an Ikelite 200FL Underwater Housing with Ikelite DS Strobes. © Dog Breath Foundation

Capturing canines in a second that exists between two worlds – the enjoyment of the huge open air and sky, and the thriller of the swirling blue beneath, is strictly the sort of innovation that was integral to creating scroll-stopping photographs that might change every little thing. Ultimately unleashing an influence that might assist empty the cages of overburdened shelter programs, and ship extra canines dwelling.

An motion shot in Lake Tahoe © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Tips for Photographing Dogs Underwater

It in all probability goes with out saying that capturing within the water with canines is a little bit of an excellent old school problem. Working with canines is totally unpredictable. Flying Paws. Soggy Snouts. Wild Splashes. Whipping Tails. Waterlogged tennis balls whizzing previous your digital camera at 125 mph. Dodging left, proper and middle whereas the superbly unscripted chaos unfolds earlier than you. While canines are one of the enjoyable topics on planet earth to {photograph}, they definitely by no means made any guarantees that they might be nonetheless. ‘Quiet’, ‘calm’, and ‘serene’ are decidedly not adjectives I’d use to explain my typical four-legged topic.

Crisp traces in Montana Lake © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

 
As the photographer, you have to be nimble, fast and able to spring at any remarkably sudden leap of pleasure that will organically unfold in entrance of your lens. Add to that the stability of managing mild each above and beneath the floor, sustaining give attention to a rapidly-moving topic, preserving the water line on the dome within the good place, and preserving your personal human physique above water lengthy sufficient to nail the shot.

But ‘nothing worth having ever came easy’ – as they are saying.

Sunburst, cut up shot, shelter canine © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Since taking my Ikelite housing on it’s maiden voyage in 2015, I’ve spent numerous hours refining strategies, and battling the challenges that include working with topics of the unpredictably wiggly, head-shaking, wave-chasing, water-spraying selection. So in that spirit, I’m going to share two essential tips about easy methods to obtain epic underwater photographs of topics of the canine selection: 

Location is Key

I’ve traveled world wide and again once more trying to find our bodies of water the place I may make this work. Aside from a keen and water-loving canine topic, water readability is absolutely the most essential aspect that I have to search for to be able to obtain profitable cut up photographs.

A canine poses within the shallows of Saco River, New Hampshire. © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

The greatest our bodies of water that I’ve discovered for this to this point are sometimes glacially-fed alpine lakes. Think of locations like Lake Tahoe in California, Moraine Lake in Banff, or Flathead Lake in Montana. The water must have an impressively low NTU (Nephelometric Turbidity Units) studying  – indicating phenomenal optical readability – for the cut up shot to really work. Even lakes identified for his or her attractive water, like Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, have beneficiant quantities of ‘glacial flour’ from microscopic particles of rock floor down by surrounding glaciers. This ‘glacial flour’ or ‘rock silt’ is what can flip a physique of water into that breathtaking postcard good turquoise shade – but it surely concurrently tamps down on the underwater readability ranges. 

After a lot trial and error, I’ve found that sure rivers can work fairly nicely as underwater shoot areas, particularly in spots the place the water is comparatively shallow – say, 2 toes deep or much less) and the present is shifting.

Bright eyes and colourful skies in Round Valley Reservoir © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Pay Attention to the Underwater Substrate

What is on the underside of your lake or river mattress? Too a lot sand, silt or underwater vegetation, and your potential for a picture will get blown the second your wiggly topic strikes and kicks up a cloud of grime. Which, for full disclosure, they very a lot will do. Continually. For the whole period of your session.

To permit your topic to maneuver freely and with out visible consequence, you need to search for a rocky backside to your physique of water. Big, spherical, shiny rocks work greatest for preserving down the silt ranges, and they {photograph} fantastically whereas including a lot of visible curiosity to the underside half of your body. Win-win!

Colorful rocks add dimension to this shot from Bob’s Cove, New Zealand © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

Traveling Across the World to Help Dogs Find a Home

I’ve packed my Ikelite tightly right into a journey case and dragged it the world over, from Northern California to the South Island of New Zealand – from the glowing glacial lakes of Montana, or the dashing crystalline waters of Banff to the cerulean blue sea of the Virgin Islands. All with one mission: To give a voice to people who haven’t any approach to converse for themselves. To rewrite the endings to their tales.
And most significantly: to craft a compass that may all the time level them dwelling. 

Sandy noses and sunny skies in St. Croix © Kaylee Greer / Dog Breath Foundation

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Kaylee Greer is a multi-international award-winning canine photographer, bestselling writer, and the star of Nat Geo WILD’s tv mini-series Pupparazzi. She is likely one of the most sought-after ‘dogtographers’ on the planet and a inventive chief in her {industry}. Kaylee has devoted her life to telling the tales of the canines who’ve been forgotten and left behind along with her non-profit The Dog Breath Foundation. Through her digital camera lens, her mission is to provide a voice to the unvoiced, and seize the limitless spirit and whimsy of canine in a single {photograph}. Kaylee’s photographs grace books, magazines, merchandise, packaging, calendar traces, greeting playing cards, and promoting campaigns all through the business pet {industry}. A world-class educator, Kaylee has led sold-out workshops globally, spoken at industry-renowned nationwide and worldwide pictures conferences, and hosted Shutterhound in Las Vegas, her personal in-person, canine pictures academic convention. Her signature fashion – explosive shade, showstopping cinematic edge, and soulful expressions –  has formed the look of recent canine pictures. Her distinctive photographic perspective is drawn instantly from the inspiration she finds contained in the soul of a canine. She is the bestselling writer of the 5 Star Reviewed title Dogtography: A Knock Your Socks Off Guide to Capturing the Best Dog Photos on Earth, and the chief of her personal on-line schooling platform for canine photographers – The Dog Breath Photo Society. Learn more…