My recent session with Bailey the golden retriever took place in Queenstown, New Zealand. The scenery here is just stunning and I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such a great dog to work with amongst it all! Our session took place very early in the morning as the sun was just making its way over the mountains – you can see the clusters of clouds still waking up from the dark of the night.
Bailey is two years old but you’d be forgiven for thinking he was an older dog – he was so soulful and dignified for our whole session. His tail was wagging the whole time and he was happy! He just maintained a very serious expression in front of the camera which makes for some very dignified shots.
After a little wander around the area, we found this abandoned little site of ruins – the red colours were a great contrast to the cooler hues of the sky and mountains.
Bailey obliged me by hopping up on a tree stump – you can see his happy tail but he was definitely a little confused as to what he was doing up there!
We then came to my favourite part of working with Bailey – the water! He’d been working so hard all morning posing for photographs and you could tell he just wanted to let loose and play. His owners let him off the leash and he was off swimming in true golden retriever style into the gorgeous New Zealand scenery.
The water was the most beautiful shade of turquoise I have ever seen – it was perfectly clear and the green and blues shimmered and sparkled with joy. Bailey started doing some great fetching and swimming with his stick and I could hardly contain myself with excitement at the opportunity to photograph him like this.
I ended up knee deep in the water to take these shots – it was totally worth it but boy oh boy it was FREEZING!! It took me a little while to get myself into position because of the logistics of the water, which meant that of course by the time I was ready to take the shots Bailey had decided he was almost done swimming. We enticed him by throwing a few more sticks into the water and he did one final happy swim to get them.
It was so great to meet Bailey and such a delight to photograph him! He was such a majestic boy and those soulful expressions just melted my heart. The combination of such a majestic dog against such incredible scenery was a pet photographers dream!
If you’d like to see more photos of Bailey, he is on instagram at @golden.bailey.ward – check it out to see some more photos of him enjoying his daily life.