Research Elke Vogelsang

Elke Vogelsang

http://elkevogelsang.com/en/studio-dog-photographer/

Elke Vogelsang was born in Hildesheim in Germany in 1972 and is a photographer specialising in dog portraiture. She took up photography as a form of stress release during her husband Carsten’s recovery from an illness and developed a serious interest in it. She initially focused on photographing her three rescue dogs Noodles, Scout and Loli then as her work became well known she began photographing other people’s dogs and developed her own business. She has also published a collection of images of her dogs in a book ‘Nice Nosing You – for the love of life, dogs and photography’ 2015. Her images are warm and intimate as well as being captivating and often entertaining.

These images are from Vogelsang’s collection in her book ‘Nice Nosing You– for the love of life, dogs and photography’ 2015’, which were compiled over the course of two years as her husband recovered from a brain haemorrhage.  The photos are of Vogelsang’s own dog Scott whom she rescued from Spain. The images were taken in her studio with Scott sitting and staring up at the camera. She has positioned her camera at an unusual perspective with it set in very close proximity to Scott’s nose and has used the wide angle technique. This exaggerates this particular feature of the dog and makes it look out of proportion to the rest of its face and body.

The images produced make me smile when I look at them, and they are really captivating as I have not seen such beautifully detailed quality images planned in this way. Usually, when such images are taken they are by accident and of poor quality. By composing the images in this unusual way the photographer has captured the personality of the dog in a heart-warming way. Scott looks attentive and devoted to his owner. What I really find inspirational about these images is the way the perspective has exaggerated the size of the dog’s nose and made it the dominant focus of the image. This is aided by Vogelsang positioning the nose directly in the centre of the frame of the first image. Taking the image this way highlights the function of a dog’s nose, providing it with an extraordinary sense of smell. The second image additionally captures the wet texture of the dog’s nose which is known to be important in trapping scents. Compared to a human’s olfactory ability dog's is 10,000 times better, humans have 5 million smell receptors while dogs have up to 250 million.  They can detect chemicals diluted to 1 or 2 parts per trillion.  Also the part of a dog’s brain that controls smell is 40 times larger than the equivalent part in humans even though dog’s brains can be one-tenth the size of ours. Dog’s noses are fantastically designed, they have two different air passages, one for breathing and one for smelling, and their nostrils can smell independently to help them determine the direction of where scents come from. Dogs interpret their world through their nose, and can tell a lot about someone just from their scent such as if they are happy, sad, and pregnant or even if they have cancer. By focusing on the dog’s nose in the image and using the unusual perspective this distorts the size of the dog’s nose in comparison to the rest of its face, and highlights the dog’s extraordinary sense of smell. The size also parallels the importance of scent to a dog in revealing and experiencing their world around them.

This image captures Vogelsang’s dog Loli with her head resting on a wooden table. The image has been taken from a position and perspective (wide angle) so that there is an emphasis on the dog’s ears and nose. Loli is on alert and seems to be concentrating on something in front of her. Her ears are upright and facing forward so that they are focused on hearing every detail, they act like radars to hone in on the sound. Dogs can do this as they have 18 muscles in their ears which allow them to voluntary move them towards the direction the sound is coming from. They can tilt them, rotate them, lay them flat or make them erect. Being placed on the top of their head and facing forward rather than at the side of the head like ours, contributes to the acute hearing they have. It is about four times better than ours, they can hear higher pitched sounds (40-60kHz) compared to a human (20-20kHz). They can also hear independently from each ear and have the ability to filter different sounds. The image therefore by focusing on the dog’s large alert radar-like ears emphasises its acutely sensitive hearing ability. 

Vogelsang has taken this image of her third rescue dog Noodles, who only has one eye. It has been taken in Vogelsang’s studio and Noodles is sitting and looking towards something in front of her. She is sticking out her pink tongue and it is curved upwards and wrapped around her nose. She is basically licking her lips and nose with her long tongue. This image is most unusual to see and by capturing it she focuses attention on the dog's long tongue and its sense of taste. In this humorous and endearing portrait of her dog, I can almost see the photographer holding out a dog treat to encourage Noodles to lick her lips. This image must have required a lot of patience from both the dog and the photographer to capture it. It reminds me of just how food oriented dogs can be and how this often shines through in their personality, as has been captured in the image.



I really love this image as it captures the bond between the dog and the owner. The dog is staring up devotedly at a point where its owner's eyes would be. However, the viewer can only see the owners hand and lower arm so it is left to their imagination to imagine what they look like and the expression on their face. In the person's hand, the dog has placed its paw, this is a common trick you teach them when they want something from you. However, in this image, it doesn’t seem as if the dog wants anything, other than to just be physically close to its owner and feel the physical touch of their hand. By placing the hand and the paw together in such a central and prominent position and by closely cropping the image this focuses the viewer's attention onto the act. This says to me they want to be physically near each other and that they are devoted to each other as man and dog. If I hold out my hand I can almost feel my own dog placing his paw in my hand. This image has strong memories associated with it for me to recall upon. 

This is a portrait image of Scout taken in Vogelsang’s studio. In the image, the dog's face and neck areas have been captured with the dog in the sit position and facing the camera. Also, the dog is wearing a grey knitted hood giving it a more human appearance as its ears cannot be seen. The image has an endearing and personal quality to it. This is achieved through Scouts attentive staring straight at you, as well as the fun aspect that he is wearing a knitted hood and the fact that he is sticking his tongue out at you.

Influence and Summary

I find Vogelsang's images of her dogs captivating and endearing. The concept of the approach she has taken is inspirational to me and I have been influenced to have a similar approach when photographing my own dogs, in order to highlight a particular sense feature such as their nose or ears. Her idea of using such an unusual perspective and the wide angle technique creates a distortion that exaggerates some of the dog's features and so makes it dominate the frame. By making the feature out of proportion to what you would expect to see this makes the image interesting and captivating and highlights and emphasises the function. and the sensory experience the dogs receives from it. 

I have used Vogelsang's approach using the technique of wide angle close up to capture images of my dog Hades nose. In the image, Hades nose is massive and occupies a large part of the frame, and this is a distortion in the size that would normally be expected. The size makes it dominate the frame and really draws the viewer's attention to it. I have cropped his ears from the image as they could have acted as a distraction as they are quite large too, and have used a narrow depth of field to slightly blur the rest of his head so that it does not act as a distraction from his nose. I also think the long line of his snout and the direction of his line of sight from his eyes further draws the viewer's attention towards his massively exaggerated nose. The moist patterned texture of the nose can be clearly seen and this acts as an interesting focal point in the image.

You would not normally see their nose in such close-up detail and this also makes the image captivating. The dog's nostrils look huge like massive hoovers that will gather all scents that are anywhere near them and suck them in to be analysed. This includes the scent of the photographer standing so close to the dog and emphasises that we have a unique smell to the dog. This is what Hades is smelling at the moment the image was taken, that and the scent of the cameras as it was so close to his nose to capture the image.  In this way, the technique visually emphasises the highly sensitive sensory experience that dogs have and which is so vital in enabling them to experience the world around them.