Dogtography. Kaylee Greer
carve it for me.
Luckily for me, I was blessed enough to be able to turn my copious amounts of “dog crazy” into passion, and that passion into a profession.
Yup, you heard it here folks—I am a professional dog photographer.
(If you hang on just a second, upon the announcement of the news, I think I can hear the five-year-old version of myself squealing with delight from all the way back in 1990.)
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Ten years ago, I was a terribly lost soul. After college, I held my head high and walked the world with big, big aspirations. I applied to a gazillion (technical number) different companies on a gazillion different kinds of resume paper.
As far as I knew, I had done everything right. I got excellent grades, I turned in all my papers on time, I interned at all the right places, and took all the right electives. I did everything that my parents and teachers and bosses and mentors had told me to do. So naturally, when I left school, I was riding high. Or so I thought. Shining bright and ready to conquer the world, I applied to my top company choices, sending my sparkling resume to places where I just knew I could go, join the ranks of the workforce and change the world. How lucky they would be to have me.
Little did I realize that “doing everything right” didn’t necessarily translate to a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s proverbial chocolate factory of business, life and obnoxious amounts of success. When no responses came back to me in the form of job offers straight out of a Hollywood picture, I found myself working a “make-ends-meet” job that squashed every fiber of creativity and soul that I had. Leaving my workplace at the ends of my shifts in tears started to become commonplace, and I fell into a state of deep sadness as I tried to avoid the daily lie I was telling myself about how I was doing everything I could, all along knowing full well that I was wasting valuable time while not using my gifts to their full potential.
One afternoon, I was driving home from that particular job—tires splashing across wet pavement—and I made a decision. I was going to take the next step toward finding my purpose. In that tiny moment of clarity, I took a step back and had a heart-to-heart with Kaylee Greer. A meeting of sorts. Both the grown-up version of me and the squeaky five-year-old version of me were in attendance. I asked myself some hard questions.
“What is it that I was put on this planet to do?”
“What do I have inside me that I should give the world?”
“What is my purpose?”
Those answers, the ones that have always been there in the back of my head, lighting a wildfire in my heart, came soaring to the forefront of my life and my mind:
Dogs.
So, I went to the shelter.
At the time, I had absolutely no idea how much that decision would change my life. In those long and winding shelter hallways, Dog Breath Photography was born. It is where I would step onto a rollercoaster cart that would start me on the greatest and most thrilling adventure of my life, taking me to places I could have never even begun to imagine. The cart began to climb up the very first hill, bringing me to higher heights than I ever thought possible. I peered, disbelieving and wide eyed over its brightly colored edge and just before I had a chance to take a deep breath and brace myself, the first gust of wind blasted my hair backwards, and I watched my future unfold in the name of dog.
Since that moment 10 years ago, I have photographed thousands of dog photo sessions; traveled the world teaching photography workshops; worked on life-changing international animal rescue missions; shot national commercial ad campaigns for some of the biggest brands in the pet industry; seen my work in editorials, greeting cards, books, calendars, and galleries; have had a television series on Nat Geo WILD; and now, my fingers are clinking wildly on this keyboard as I get to write my first ever book.
So here I am, staring at this computer screen for so many hours a day that I think my eyes might pop out of my head. I’d like to thank the 2,000 Reese’s peanut butter cups and 4,500 pee breaks it took me to write this book. I also must extend an extra special bout of gratitude to my dogs, Joshua and Junie, for lying at my feet for at least 75% of this time-consuming process and letting out silent-but-deadlies that could put an entire pasture of cows to shame. A high five goes to my partner Sam for peeling my flattened body off the floor after another 8-hour stint of writing threw me into a new and exciting bout of crippling self doubt, the kind in which I decided for the 33rd time that “I can’t do this. This is an impossible task.”
But holy banana sandwiches, we’ve arrived. Here we are. Welcome. Welcome to my book. I am so excited I think my heart might melt down into puddles in my shoes.
The following pages are a collection of my thoughts. An amalgamation of experiences. A curation of philosophies. A treasure chest of sparkling tips and secret gems. After ten years of photographing dogs professionally, I’ve arrived here, to the pages of this book, with the promise to share all the information that I’ve hoarded away in the colorful corners of my brain. (Well, actually, lucky for you, not all the information, just the stuff pertaining to dogs and cameras.)
Behind the scenes filming our television show Pupparazzi for Nat Geo WILD.
If you love dogs, this book is for you.
If you love photography, this book is for you.
If you want to take better photos of your own dog, for no other reason than to capture his perfect legacy for posterity, this book is for you.
If you dream of becoming a professional dog photographer, this book is for you.
If you already are a professional dog photographer, this book is for you.
And if you just happen to want to gaze upon adorable dog photos for a few hundred pages to meet your monthly “cute overload” quota, well, you’re in luck—because this book is also for you.
As you make your journey through the pages of this book, you might find out pretty quickly that I don’t take myself too seriously. I can only share my stories, experiences and store of knowledge in the best way I know how—by being me. But in between the adventurous anecdotes and parenthetical asides, I can assure you that the rigid bits of technical information and the very real facts do exist. I may have just shrouded them in the occasional unicorn and rainbow wrapping paper because, apparently, that’s how I cope with impossible challenges (or things that I believe to be impossible challenges, like you know, writing this book).
But that’s enough rambling from me. I can assure you, there’s plenty of time for that later. Now, hop on in this rollercoaster cart with me, and I’ll take you to a place where you just might discover the magic, mayhem, and madness that goes into making the best dog photos on planet Earth.
— Kaylee
Here I am, among hundreds of free ranging dogs at the Territorio de Zaguates on a mountaintop in Costa Rica.