My Why, Charlotte Ann
Meet Charlotte Ann, my gift
Once upon a time I had two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Toby & Clover. I often wondered what would happen when one of them passed before the other. I figured Clover was going to pass after Toby (let's all admit we worry about who goes first right?) but she fooled me and passed first after a short but valiant battle with congestive heart failure in 2015 (no one wins that battle I'm sure). So there was Toby-now an only doggy after 12 years of being the older brother doggy. Long story short I was in Reno in September of 2016 and learned of an adorable little 8 year old Cavalier named Charlotte who needed a new place to live. Lucky me, I got to provide her the new place. I travelled from Reno to Phoenix to pick her up, flew from Phoenix to Dallas with this little stranger accompanying me. I called her Charlotte Ann Toll, CAT, because she had some cat-like quirks. She met Toby and our story continued through the next 6 years: through Toby's passing in December 2017, to me bringing home a puppy (Whiskey), to bringing home another puppy (Griffon) for the other puppy (who was wearing Charlotte out), to a call from a trusted friend who said "I have a 4 year old tricolor male with a heart murmur who needs a home-his name is Diego, but I know you want a tricolor to call Dash-he could be your Dash." All of the sudden I had 4 Cavaliers! One in every color! Lifetime goal achieved!! After Covid upended all our lives we moved from Texas back to Arizona in 2021. I realized her time was coming to an end, and knew I wanted more than just cellphone camera photos of her. So I decided to tackle digital photography with a REAL camera in an attempt to capture more memories of my dear sweet girl. See, once upon another time, I was a young human person studying Photography in college. I was more of a view camera, black and white, polaroid type 55 kind of girl. Photoshop was only a couple of years old at this point and I dismissed digital because well I was an art school nerd who was using non-silver printing techniques because I could. Let's return focus to the real story; Back to early 2022, I had loads of digital images of my Charlotte (and my first 2 Cavaliers as well) but none of them high enough quality to print big. I made the investment of money into a professional digital camera as well as the investment of time trying to master this computer dressed as a camera. So why do I want to make pet portraits? Because our memory gets foggy (my memories are foggy) but now I have some really beautiful meaningful images of my dear sweet Charlotte. From September 20 2016 to August 23 2022 I was so very fortunate to be Charlottes human. When I miss her (which is frequently) I can look at these images and feel the connection that made me "her person." I want to make sure you can also have meaningful images too, if you want them. Dogs are ephemeral gifts, we are lucky to live with them.
