Creativity comes out of the strangest places sometimes. I was at a Kelly Clarkson concert the other night and she had giant video screens that projected images depending on the song. One song she sang was called "Nostalgic" and the images had that scratchy, Super 8 film look to them. I thought, wouldn't it look cool if I did something like that with pet photography? Now of course, I could just add a Super 8 texture in Final Cut Pro X or I could even shoot a video with a Super 8 film app. That's a very modern thing to do, that vintage thing.

So I decided to try my hand at creating something and it totally ended up completely different than the inspiration.

Now this little guy was one of the adoptables at Shelter Hope Pet Shoppe in Thousand Oaks. I photographed him on a white background. I was thinking of calling in some volunteer dogs so that I could create a composite image but then I realized, hey, I have these photos that could be used.

I cut him out from the white so I could lay him on a map that I bought from Etsy. At first, I cut out the whole puppy to use but as I went on I decided just his face would look better. I really liked his expression... it was very Mona Lisa. A wise look.

After I put him on the map, I lowered the opacity just a bit so you could still kind of see the map. Then I added a golden layer above the puppy to make him and the map sort of the same tone. I put a golden texture over everything and I added some grunge with a brush to muck it up a bit. I was going to add scratches but forgot and in retrospect, I don't think it needs it.

I went to iStock to get a frame image and decided this golden frame would showcase my little Renaissance puppy quite well so I bought that. I was going to have a modern puppy look at the ancient puppy but didn't really have the right image for that so if I ever decide to go in that direction, I have a puppy as a piece of museum art. That's what I think, anyway.

It was a radical departure from Kelly Clarkson's inspiration, see below or a video from a concert, but it has it's own merits. I think it would be fun to offer a client.

Want your own Renaissance puppy portrait? Dog as art? Give me a call at 818.481.5214. I'm Diana Lundin, I'm a Los Angeles pet photographer, and I want to photograph your dog. Or cat.