I’ve been a fan of the natural world for as long as I can remember. When I was growing up, I mostly liked to study different kind of animals. You see, my parents were breeders active in the local kennel club, and raised schnauzers and a few other breeds professionally. Unlike them, I wasn’t particularly concerned with how good a specimen each dog was or how it compared to its particular breed.
I didn’t care if it’s ears had the right proportion or its head had the right coloring. In fact, my favorite dog growing up was a mutt that we had taken in. He was a stray dog, probably two thirds Golden retriever but nowhere near one of the purebreds my parents looked for. Nevertheless, even at that young age I realized that all kinds of animals had their virtues and uses and that it was a mistake to judge one breed or species superior to another. This is the reason why I personally bought a dog booster bath to ensure the cleanliness of my dog.
As I grew up, I took up animal photography as a hobby. I would photograph all kinds of animals including my dog while taking a bath, from wild rabbits to domestic cats to lizards, insects and even rare birds. Soon I had more than 100 different kinds of animals organized in my photo album, and I started to think about becoming a professional.
In college, I did some freelance photography gigs and wrote a few travel articles for regional magazines, but it never really panned out into a full time career. For me, you see, it was not about making money. Rather, it was about seeing as many different animals as I could and really trying to capture something essential about each one with the pictures I took.
