Busy end of the summer! We're booked through August and most of September already, but with a little help from my coffee-peddling friends at Starbucks, whom I'm pretty sure I'm putting through college with my constant business, I think everyone who's been before the lenses lately will be delighted.

Above ls a fine young man we photographed last week on Long Island, producing some great portraits for his family. This guy's smart, funny, and just loves that dog (and the pup loves him back, from what I could tell!). The light was perfect around 6:30 p.m., so we took advantage of it by placing them in some shade with their backs to the bright sky. Add a little light with a reflector for a "pop" (all credit to his mom Sheila for that!) and bingo! Fun keepsakes!

A few weeks back, we spent many hours at the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in Smithtown, Long Island, for photography of some of the guide dogs in-training and puppy litters. Our theme in this shot was that the little 'uns want to grow up to be like the big guide dogs, and we were having a heck of a time getting them to cooperate with the posing. One of the GDF's brilliant trainers suggested we just back off and let them be dogs, and within about 10 seconds, we had the shot we wanted. Adorable.

Continuing our themed shoot with this image, our puppy poses in an adult harness for guide dogs. This one wasn't as hard to get, though our puppy did want to be just that and romp around a bit.

We were also shooting for a cooperative with Raytex Industries, the parent company of Glory Days pet beds. Specific beds purchased from Glory Days will help to raise funds for America's Vet Dogs, an absolutely wonderful program run by the same fine folks over at GDF. Take some time and check out the above links for all involved, their causes are wonderful.