shine pet photos | modern pet photography

Those of you who read the blog regularly and follow me on facebook probably remember that I started fostering my first foster dog Harry back in January. The poor guy came to us so abused and broken - when I looked at him I literally felt like I was staring at a vacant shell of a dog. The passion and joy that you always see in the eyes of happy dogs was completely extinguished, and he just looked so very sad all the time. After weeks of working with him, I finally started to see small glimmers of happiness in his eyes.

We fostered Harry for 3 months, without any applications coming in for the sweet guy. I finally decided to tweet Denise Richards to see if she might be able to help - she’s a huge supporter of dog rescue and Best Friends Los Angeles, who I was fostering Harry for. To my utter surprise and happiness she retweeted my message to her millions of followers!

Literally within an hour, we had several promising emails, with one that really stood out from the pack! Harry had found his forever home - one with a dad that would stay home with him all day long, and a mom that would spoil him to pieces with new matching leashes, collars, and bowls.

By April, Harry was ready to go to his new home. These photos were taken in our last hours together.

(^ He’s smiling! I swear I didn’t photoshop this!)

I won’t lie - I was a complete and utter wreck that morning. When Robin from Best Friends came to get him, I was bawling so hysterically that she actually said “Grace! He doesn’t have to go! He can stay here with you!” But I knew he had found his perfect family, and I tearfully said bye to Harry that morning.

A good friend told me that the pain of parting with a foster dog goes away as soon as you get your first update, and she was right. Harry’s new mom and dad have done such an amazing job with Harry since April and I’m so excited to share their update:

I had the pleasure of meeting Kristin Bauer, her husband Abri and their 2 gorgeous dogs Asher and Ozmand in April. Kristin is an extremely talented actress most well known for her role as Pam on the HBO hit series True Blood. I loooooove her character on the show - she’s so deadpan and delicious and villainous and gorgeous all in one. And that wardrobe! If you haven’t seen True Blood yet, you should seriously consider devoting an entire weekend to catching up on seasons one and two - yes, it’s that good and no surprise that it’s HBO’s most popular show since The Sopranos!

I know Kristin is really, ridiculously good at acting because in real life, she’s truly nothing like Pam. AT ALL! You know you’ve had a good session when after 2 hours of photographing, you still want to sit and chit chat over coffee- which is exactly what we did. I love her dedication to her husband, her dogs, to rescue, to the environment, and to the world we all share. What a beautiful person, inside and out. And did I mention her husband Abri is an fabulously talented musician?

Thanks for a great photoshoot Kristin and Abri. Kristin, I look forward to seeing more of your fangastic ways on True Blood this season!

*Note: These photos may not be reposted anywhere without the EXPRESS WRITTEN CONSENT of Grace Chon. Please email info @ shinepetphotos dot com if you want to post these.

Meet Princess Abby, the winner of the 2010 World’s Ugliest Dog contest!

She loves dancing for treats!

Thank you to everyone who came out on Saturday for our “Portraits for Puppies” fundraiser! Thanks to everyone’s generosity, the Dawg Squad has another $875 to help with their medical bills.

I met so many beautiful dogs and their owners on Saturday and I’m just sorry I couldn’t fit you all on the blog.

You are all amazing and thank you so much for the support. I know the puppies thank you too!

I had a really wonderful photoshoot back in April with Scott and Max. Scott adopted Max almost 14 years ago through Best Friends Animal Society (you can read more about the two at the Best Friends website) and we met on this gorgeous April day to get a shot for a new Best Friends print ad promoting their “No More Homeless Pets” campaign. You can see the finished ad at the end of this blog post, but here are some outtakes that I particularly loved. When I get the opportunity to photograph such an amazing pair and chronicle their bond, I feel so at home, and know I have the best job in the world.

The ad made it’s debut in Frontiers magazine and can now be seen larger than life at the Grove!

Thank you to everyone who helped make this shoot possible (you know who you are!!!), to Eric at Best Friends for creating a beautiful layout, to Claudia for keeping me in the loop on this project, and of course to Scott and Max for being such beautiful photography subjects.