Photographer Elke Vogelsang captures portraits of dogs in their more intense and emotional moments, such as waiting for a treat, or waiting to catch a toy. Vogelsang highlights fleeting expressions, shown through head tilts, open-mouthed smiles, and wide-eyes stares, as Colossal details:
Each piece is matched with an equally playful title, like “The Dog Side of the Force” and “Bessy Muppetational.”
Vogelsang began photographing her three rescue dogs during a period of family hardship that started in 2009—she was charged with caring for her mother-in-law, who was suffering from dementia, shortly before her husband was in a coma due to a ruptured aneurysm. “I decided to start the project, despite my husband being in the hospital, or rather because of it, as I wanted to try to keep up a bit of normality and have something like a visual diary for my husband of that time,” she tells Colossal.
image via Colossal