Client Session ~ Rafe the Australian Terrier x Maltese

Since the beach is pretty much Rafe’s favourite place in the world, we decided a beach shoot was the way to go! We’d been battling with the weather and had a few postponed shoots already, so on the afternoon of our session, although it was quite cloudy, it wasn’t actually raining so we decided to go ahead with it regardless. When I arrived at the beach, I was greeted with a LOT of this:

His owners Gerard and Christie had arrived about half an hour beforehand so they could get the beans out of him in time for my arrival, but there were still a few beans left by the time I turned up! We started off up in the dunes and although the sky was pretty grey, the muted tones of the sand and sky and ocean in the background ended up complimenting Rafe’s colouring beautifully.

With all that running around, it’s inevitable that sands gets EVERYWHERE.

Lucky mum was there to get it out of his eyes.

Rafe was definitely one of the most fun and energetic dogs I’ve photographed. He was completely at home at the beach, racing around in the sand, digging, burying his head, rolling and all manner of fun sand related doggy activities! What a beachy boy he is.

He was also quite curious and was intruiged enough to follow my camera around, trying to work out exactly what game it was that we were playing.

One of the most popular toys I take along to sessions are these little squeaky animals. They are great to hold and make noises with when trying to juggle a heavy camera and get a dog’s attention. Rafe decided that he LOVED it though and was quick to permanently adopt this little red caterpillar I’d brought along!

He really, really loved it, and spent quite a while lying in the sand burying it, unburying it and generally throwing it around. His antics had all three of us in hysterics for quite some time!

I felt a little mean for confiscating it for a while but don’t worry, he got to take it home with him afterwards. Apparently he was still playing with it days later, although he had managed to de-squeak it (probably to the immense relief of his mum and dad).

Rafe was a wonderfully willing model and consented to being placed up on some rocks for modelling duties. Love those fluffy legs!

Gerard had actually organise the session as a birthday present for his fiance Christie, so we set up a few family shots.

Christie spends a lot of time with Rafe, he’s her constant companion, so we had to take some shots with the both of them. We worked out that at 18 months old, Rafe must be going through that teenager phase. While quite happy to hang out in the general vicinity of his parents, when it came time to get up close for cuddles and love he got rather embarrassed and shamed out and decided he didn’t want a bar of it. Typical teen!

To finish our session off we headed around to the rock wall section of the Spit and Rafe did some further exploring. Definitely in mission mode in this one!

But still quite happy to pose on some rocks for us.

I just loved my session with Rafe and his mum and dad! They were so fun to work with and what a rad little dog! If ever I get a small fluffy dog, I’m gonna order one exactly like him (or possibly have him cloned).