Carli Davidson - Shake

This book is dedicated to my dogs, Norbert, Jack, Dempsey, Ashes, Daisy, and Chloe. Over the years you have saved me a fortune in psychiatrist bills, and for that I am grateful.It is also dedicated to my father, Charles Davidson, who taught me how to catch snakes when I was six years old. It might bite you, he said, but remember, its more afraid of you than you are of it, so be gentle. To it, youre a giant!Also to my husband, Tim, whose fascination with being married to an eccentric artist is ever enduring and much appreciated. Seven years before I was born, a bulldog saved my familys lives. Daisy was only a puppy at the time, but her shrill bark woke my father to a house filled with thick smoke after an oily rag burst into flame.

He roused my mother, and together they grabbed my sisters and Daisy and made it outside to safety. I was born just in time to meet Daisya snorting, drooling bundle of skin. Her grunts and generous licks are some of my earliest memories. I also grew up with our dogs Jack, Dempsey, Chloe, and Ashes, our cat, Hulk Hogan (named after my hero), and a multitude of reptiles and amphibians. I cared for them, played with them, and was comforted by them while I struggled with adolescence. I also watched them age, and mourned them when they passed.

Each one of them is part of the reason why I have so much awe and respect for the animals around me. They keep me grounded by providing me with totally honest interactions and an environment in which I give and receive unconditional affection. Growing up next to a nature preserve gave me the opportunity to work with animals from a young age. I watched butterflies emerge from cocoons and pump their withered wings to fullness. I watched spiders spin their webs, in awe of their attention to detail. I caught frogs for fun, hunting them like I had seen my cat hunt them and then pouncing on them with cupped hands.

Through animals I learned the mysteries of life and death, and the miracles of the everyday. Its no wonder Ive worked with them for most of my life. Ive been a zookeeper and a conservation educator. Ive also volunteered with wildlife and pet rescues, which taught me how to work with animals from different backgrounds. After years of working in the fields of photography and animal care, I set my focus on running a photo studio. I no longer don coveralls and spend hours cleaning enclosures and prepping diets.

Instead I spend more time with my dog, Norbert, on a daily basis than with anyone else. I listen to his droning snores and grunts as I work, and I observe him eternally trying to find the softest spot on his bed. He stretches each time he gets up, and then he shakes his whole body, peppering the walls with saliva from his plentiful jowls. Hes given me thousands of these shakes throughout the years, and they kept hinting at me to photograph them until I was finally watching closely enough to get the message. In photographing Norbert I was borrowing the idea of capturing an animal in mid-motion from Eadweard Muybridge. In 1878 Muybridge used his camera to prove that horses lift all four legs off the ground at one time as they run.

He captured an action that happens too quickly for our minds to grasp what it looks like. In Shake, two photographs of each dog are presented side by side, like two frames of a movie, to show the animals movement. The photos are a reminder that the external is transitory; that superficial thoughts about the appearance of a person or animal are based on how they look at any one moment, or from different angles. With those we know well, we communicate, relate to each other, and form memories based on common appearances and expressions. When we take a familiar smile away, our minds are left searching for an explanation. Shake calls us to challenge our understanding of the familiar.

The images are not meant to be overtly funny, but the photographs certainly make me laugh. The concept is not meant to be dark, and yet by capturing awkward expressions, some of the photos make the dogs look more like monsters than the friends we see every day. After photographing the first five dogs in the series, I posted the photos online. Shake quickly went viral and took over my life like a storm. My work was appearing in blogs and was being published in magazines. It was being reviewed by people I had only dreamed would ever pay attention to me and my off-the-cuff photos.

During a global recession and war, a time when conversations were sad and heavy, I was receiving hundreds of e-mails a week from people telling me my photos made them laugh, and that felt amazing. Seeing how Shake was shared and enjoyed by millions of people worldwide has given me insight into the universality of how much we love our pets, and how excited we are to see our heroes in a new way. Carli Davidson