My dear videographer friends at Big Dog Little Bed have expanded and are welcoming Andrea, their Creative Producer, to their team! I’ve photographed BDLB many times and we always have so much fun, but it was really wonderful seeing the energy between Janice and Andrea for the first time. They’re both encouraging and inspiring one another, and they’re truly excited and passionate about their work telling the stories of others. I was tasked with getting new headshots of everyone, documenting their process and story discovery (with help from Lauren and Jeni, our client models), and photographing their new studio setup. All of this included Bernie and Layla Bean, the BDLB dogs! Bernie, the resident Big Dog (or bigger dog in this case since she’s kind of medium-sized) is super into me right now and I’m enjoying basking in her fandom. Layla’s the resident dog skeptic who is much more like a cat. She likes me too, but really just prefers trying to keep her toys away from Bernie. It’s always fun to photograph the pups but even more fun to reconnect with this amazing local small business of which I’m a superfan. :)

We did a shoot with Janice Smith of Big Dog Little Bed Productions way back in 2015 (see it here!) when I was just starting to become the creepily obsessed stalker of her dog named Toby. She wasn’t super concerned about my drooling over his fluffy adorable fluffness at the time but I think over time she’s come to realized just how serious I am about him. I call her from hotel rooms at 11pm to say things like, “Hey Janice! We just made it to Blacksburg! Are you still awake? Can I come see Toby? What’s your room number? Oh… you just got in bed? Okay…I guess I’ll see him tomorrow.” And then I call at 8am to say things like, “Hey Janice! We are awake! Are you awake? Can I come see Toby? You’re downstairs? Okay, we will be right down!” And I’m not totally sure what she thinks about my constant comments on her Instagram regarding him or my texting her to ask about him occasionally but you know what? I don’t really care. Toby is my dog soulmate. My love for him is broken down into several parts:

50% Unreal orange fluff
30% Playing like a total spaz with arms straight out in what I’ve come to call “invisible casts” and romping around like he’s done five lines of cocaine
20% Unrequited love (he does tolerate me and occasionally seek me out for head pats, but part of me enjoys the fact that every single photo I take with him involves him literally rolling his eyes or actively trying to escape)

Anyway, Janice told me that Toby doesn’t like it when girls come on too strong to him, so I’m trying to refrain from making this entire post about him. Janice is a dear friend of ours, an extremely talented female bossy lady videographer, a Durhamite, a lover of pups big and small (the small, also adorable, far more loving and friendly doggo in these pictures is Murphy), a trusted colleague, and a wearer of vests and fanny packs. We have a little too much fun photobombing her at weddings (there are probably many minutes of footage she’s accumulated and cut out) and we love her dearly. It was with great pleasure that we photographed her new promo photos for her wedding and commercial videography company Big Dog Little Bed. She is hilarious and charming and adorable and beautiful and intelligent and can rock 1977 dad glasses like there’s no tomorrow. This shoot makes me smile because Janice makes me smile. Also Toby.