Madrid Dogs and Their Owners
I accidentally shot like Elliott Erwitt
One of the very first photos that left an impression on me was this Elliott Erwitt shot:
On one hand, it’s the humor, not just the dog’s face aligning so perfectly with the person’s, but also the other dog off to the side, looking mildly offended. It reminds me of Mickey Mouse logic: Goofy and Pluto are both dogs, but Goofy gets to walk upright, talk, and pay rent while Pluto is just… a pet.
The other thing that struck me was the immediacy of the photo. That dog could have moved at any second, so like most street shots, the shutter had to be clicked right then and there, or the moment would be lost. It made me realize that taking good photos often comes down to paying attention to things most people don’t even register. I could have walked past that same scene a hundred times and never noticed it—not because it wasn’t there, but because I wasn’t looking.
Erwitt’s approach to photography pulled me deeper into his work, and I found all of his dog pictures particularly funny because they explore the visual connection between a dog and its owner, objectifying a dog to expand the owner’s personal expression.
Looking at these now, what I find even more amusing is that they were taken decades ago, before dog ownership became the personality trait it is today. Before people threw birthday parties for their golden retrievers or referred to themselves unironically as “Bruno’s dad.” Before you could get a “puppuchino,” for a dog to lap up while you catch up over coffee, and before we were so obsessed with our pets and filling our social media feeds with them.
Ahead of settling back into life in Amsterdam after Melbourne, I spent a couple of weeks in Madrid, where I found myself photographing mostly in black and white. As I looked at the photos I had taken, I found that a surprising amount resembled Erwitt’s exploration of dogs as a visual extension for their owners.
This one is the most “film-resembling,” because it’s slightly grainy and blurry. And although I didn’t like the blur at first, the more I look at it, the more I think it serves the image. It contrasts and softens the rigidity of the black suits and corporate briefcases, it adds to the playfulness of such a small dog, in a bizarre harness, and it shows movement.
This one mainly makes me wonder which of the two women the dog belongs to.
I like the vastness of space that leaves the little dog in the middle: small, isolated, and vulnerable — in many ways it fits the slightly older owner. I think Erwitt would have bent down to catch the dog at eye level, but I knew that I had milliseconds before it turned its head or jumped at me.
This might be my favorite and the most representative of the phenomenon I was explaining earlier. Like the dogs, this child goes up the stairs in all fours. Yes, the dogs wear harnesses, and he wears a jacket, but the way one of the dogs turns to look at the kid, as if it’s waiting for him to catch up, makes it seem like he is not a kid at all, but rather the third dog in the family.
Send me your best dog/owner photo, subscribe, and share it with anyone who you think treats their dog a little too much like a kid.
-S
Love all of these!! I have a postcard of the bulldog one!
These are great! - When my dog-obsessed daughter travels, she takes many street dog photos, much like yours. She calls it her Good Boy Series (even if the dogs are female 😂 and sometimes squirrels get in there too!). She once went to Greece and when I asked her to send me some photos of the area she was seeing, she sent me dog photos! 🤣