There’s a particular kind of chaos that arrives with a ten-week-old puppy, and if you’ve ever tried to photograph one, you’ll know exactly what I mean. They have approximately four settings: asleep, eating, out of control, and that brief magical window in between where they’re calm enough to look at you and curious enough to stay still for half a second. As a photographer I need to be ready for that window, because it closes fast!
Nala is a ten-week-old Australian Bulldog living in Prahran with her owner Brad, and from the moment we arrived at Gasworks Park it was abundantly clear that this dog had already decided she owned the place.
Australian Bulldogs at this age are something else. They’ve got that classic bully build already coming through — the broad chest, the wrinkled forehead, the expression of permanent mild suspicion — but it’s all packaged in a body that still has the soft, slightly uncoordinated quality of a puppy who hasn’t quite grown into herself yet. Photographically, that combination is lovely to work with. Every expression looks simultaneously cute and ridiculous. I mean that as a compliment!
We chose Gasworks Park for good reason. The mix of open lawn, shaded garden paths, graffiti’d walls, textured brick and stone gives you a lot to work with in a single location, and for a puppy who wasn’t going to hold still for long, being able to move quickly between spots without packing up and driving somewhere new was essential. The morning was a little overcast and threatening showers, so we made the most of it in the first twenty minutes before Nala decided that she had places to explore.
Finding a tree stump was fortuitous for both framing and keeping our young subject in one place for while. It was a touch too high to jump off and Nala seemed to enjoy being seated a little higher off the ground and was able to see more of the park which kept her looking alert and engaged.
The wrinkles deserve their own mention. Bulldog puppies have this extraordinary excess of skin — like they’ve been issued a coat two sizes too big and haven’t grown into it yet — and in the right light, those wrinkles and folds catch shadow in a way that gives portraits an almost sculptural quality. I found myself leaning towards the black and white shots as my favourites in the edit as they seem to lend the wrinkles more prominence.
If you have an Australian Bulldog that you would like professionally photographed, we’d love to hear from you!
