The Patience Transfer

May 27

Pet photographer working with a dog during a Friends of PACC community portrait session. — Board of Directors portrait session for Friends of PACC: creating a calm, low‑stress setup so both Mikaela and her cat are comfortable in front of the camera. (photo courtesy of Reena Giola)

I'm a patient person. Not performing patience, not reminding myself to slow down. Just wired that way, which I recognize is not universal and shouldn't be taken for granted. I don't rush shelter animals in sessions because I'm impatient to get to the next thing. I don't really operate on to-do lists in any meaningful way on a session day, which probably says something about me, and is, I'm told, an ongoing frustration for my wife. If an animal needs time, we take time. I'll push a comfort zone occasionally, because a photography session is well outside what any dog or cat could reasonably call normal, but pushing a comfort zone and rushing are different things.

What the shelter taught me, though, is that being patient and appearing patient to an animal are not the same thing. It turns out the same distinction shows up in executive portrait sessions just as clearly as it does in a kennel.

You can be waiting in a way that transmits urgency. The posture is right, the pace is right, but something underneath is impatient, and animals receive that signal with a directness that humans are too polite to acknowledge. The dog doesn't ignore it. The dog goes further into the corner.

I've been photographing shelter animals since 2005, starting at Woodford Humane Society in Kentucky, then Benton-Franklin Humane Society in Washington state, and for the past several years at Pima Animal Care Center and the Humane Society of Southern Arizona here in Tucson. Twenty years across three states. That’s not a credential the way MFA is a credential or CPP is a credential, but it is the backbone of how I photograph both adoptable animals and executives who would rather be anywhere else. It's closer to what happens to your eyes when you spend enough mornings with animals who have no stake in cooperating with you. They can't be coached before the session. They can't be reasoned with. "We're just going to do a few quick shots for the website" is not a phrase that lands with a dog who arrived three days ago and has spent most of those days unsure about the nature and intentions of every person who walks through the kennel door.