I own nearly a thousand old photographs, all containing dogs. Almost all of them are snapshots, and I bet not one of them has the photographer’s name written anywhere on it. There are several photos that I consider to be on the level of Elliott Erwitt’s work with dogs, yet they are simply snapshots that have been separated from their families and are now in my hands.

It was difficult to choose which photos to feature in this post – I would post them all if I could.

I wanted to share some not that are only visually interesting, but where you can sense the personality the dog played in the family and whether it was just something to own or if it was truly a member of the family.

This is an ode to all the photographers who found their dogs interesting enough to use precious film on them. Even if the dog is just lying in the background or the photo or was clearly hardheaded enough to have to sit in the front row of a family portrait. This is to the photographers who carried their cameras to capture the little and big moments that I now possess.

The photo above is one of my personal favorites – there is so much to the single snapshot. The peculiarity of the man’s appearance as if he is an artist or maybe a circus traveler. The fact that the house, or maybe just the porch, is on logs and cluttered foreground contains millions of stories within itself. Is the man showing off the dog, or playing with it as if it were a puppet or a statue? The composition of the photo and moment it captured is thrilling and sparks many possibilities of the situation.

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