When I first started out in pet photography, I managed to photograph four tiny dogs, all looking at me at once. I was pretty sure it was a fluke. It might have been, I don't know, but yesterday I had my big score -- one human and six dogs. I say six and a half pairs of eyes because one of them, Quixote, the Xolo, only has one eye.

Now I have photographed this tiny pack before including their parrot siblings but I photographed them separately, then composited the eight of them together. The large canvas of them remains one of my all-time favorites to this day. It is jaw-dropping. But when I was at Sharon's house last April, I only had flashes with me that were powerful enough to capture nice portraits of the eight but not quite enough to photograph all of them together on the couch. Oh, we tried, but Sable, the beauty, wasn't having it and was uncooperative on the sofa. I told Sharon I would be back with my big lights and so that day finally came.

First we photographed Sharon and Poet and Pesto, her birds. Then we added in four rabbits. Next we subtracted the rabbits and parrots and called in the dogs. Now this photo was going to be different than the eight because we were photographing in Sharon's living room for a completely different look. She has a lot of organic elements in her house and we wanted that look.

This time, the three girls and three boys were perfect. You know, animals get to know you and after the third or fourth time of seeing you, they realize you aren't a threat and so it was with this group. I wasn't the threat I appeared to be the first shoot.

They all jumped on the sofa with Sharon and boom! Shot after shot, I got them to look directly at me and with my fast camera and fast lights we got the shot. I did swap out a few heads to make Tallulah look better or Pepper but I had so many choices, I really didn't have to do that. I got perfect looking at me images straight out of the camera. I must admit, that fast camera and those fast lights really help a lot. My lights stop action and recycle very quickly so I was able to really shoot very quickly.

Anyway, here is the tiny pack, all 68 pounds of them plus Sharon for six-and-a-half pairs of eyes.

Want your own custom portrait of your pets? Give me a call, I'm in Los Angeles. 818.481.5214.