WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER IN TATTON PARK – DOGFEST

As wedding photographer visiting Tatton Park in Cheshire, it was only natural that I bring my camera along when my wife, son and I attended DogFest! Shooting with just a 35mm prime lens, photographing our a little day trips is a great way to practice reportage style photography while documenting my son’s childhood at the same time.

We thought it was a good idea to bring Owen to a place where he could meet plenty of dogs since we have none of our own. I grew up with dogs as a child and both my parents still have Labradors. Owen has met and been accepted into the pack on many occasions, but he hasn’t met many dogs outside of the family home.  My wife and I are very keen to give Owen as many new experiences as possible!

DogFest was a lot more fun than I expected! I’d forgotten just how much I love dogs and I was very pleased to find that all the dog owners that we met were more than happy for Owen to meet and interact with their pets! Some of the dogs we met were huge! I won’t pretend to know the names of all the breeds. Others were tiny, and one was even being carried around in a backpack! That all being said, the thing my son wanted to do the most was to just stomp around! He’s recently began walking with assistance and he’s become a little addicted to his new-found freedom!

We watched a little ‘amateur’ dog racing. Typically, my son was looking in the wrong direction, interested in something entirely different. This was a good opportunity for practicing ‘layering’, a technique popular in documentary photography, where picture contains multiple points of interest and therefore tells more of a story.

A little later we listened to a musician ‘Sam Austin’ and after a short walk to send my son to sleep, we watched some dogs diving into a pool to catch a ball and then an obstacle course where trained dogs even needed to jump through fire! At one point, while holding a flaming dumbbell one young dog….well….did what dogs do! We ended the day with a little duck fishing. The rods were a little too big for Owen, not that he was especially worried about using rods!