Photo Assignment with Gordy, a Dual Purpose Patrol K9

Photo Assignment: Gordy – Dual Purpose K9 Patrol

This was a cover photo assignment for the Village of Sussex. It’s a bi-annual publication called The Courier. I photographed K9 Gordy under the watchful eye of his handler from the Waukesha County Sheriff Department. I was laying on the ground to get below Gordy’s eye level and to bring in the squad car’s logo. Didn’t think much of the position I was in until after the shoot. Probably not the ideal pose in front of a well-trained K9 with his handler standing behind me. Gordy’s handler was in complete control of his alert model. I made a small noise with my mouth to get Gordy’s attention but after Gordy gave me a quick hard stare with alert eyes and pointed ears, I realized really fast that the handler should do all the attention getting. I had a large rocket dust blower in my pocket along with a long Canon strap on my camera. The handler pointed out that the items could draw some attention from Gordy. Luckily, Gordy just wanted to do some nice poses. It was pretty sunny out so I opted to shoot in the shade to bring down the contrast of the police vehicle’s color scheme. The lighting also worked well to hold the color in Gordy’s fur. This was definitely a really neat experience.