Our four-legged best friends are the subject of a new photography book; Dogs with Stories. The work of Mardo El-Noor, the book showcases one hundred adorable dogs and their owners, elaborately staged in their homes in a series of "hyperrealistic" photographs.
By day, El-Noor makes a living as a director-designer of ads, music videos and other content, but in his spare time, he's worked on this book with Dobby, Pepsi, Alfred, Louie the Meatball and many more fluffy friends.
Photo: Mardo El-Noor
The process for setting up each shoot is meticulous, he told Nine to Noon.
Photo: Mardo El-Noor
“I go to someone's place, we have look around, we decide on a corner, be it their home, or their workspace, we decide on a corner, and then we decide what sort of stuff, what sort of knickknacks or ornaments, pieces of furniture to push into that corner and create some kind of a distilled version of their life, a kind of very tidy clutter of their life.
“By the end of it, we’ve spent two or three hours ending up with some kind of a vignette of their lives that fits in the back of the van. It's some kind of a take on renaissance or Baroque art, or even Tableau Vivant, people almost staged in a scene that tells their personal story.”
His criteria choosing subjects was interesting people, interesting dogs, interesting spaces.
“And if you ticked two of them, that will be enough.”
The "wonders of modern technology" allowed him to create these very staged photos.
Photo: Mardo El-Noor
"We set up the camera on a tripod, so the camera doesn't move, then we shoot the people and tell them where to look at their dog, but the dog is not there yet. I direct them to look in a particular way or interact with where the dog is going to sit or stand, and then we'll shoot the doggy and just have people with a treat ordering their dog to sit or stand or do a trick and then everything is combined in Photoshop."
Photo: Beatnik Publishing
