It's one of those weeks where the universe aligns itself, causing it to rain pugs. Likely an occurence as rare as Haley's comet, after last week's visit by Lucy Liu the pug, I photographed three more of the same breed in the past six days. . .what a great breed, and what a great time.

It started with the return of Deni Alexander Designs - this time with a fawn-colored Pug, Sushi - to make some additional shots for the advertising featuring the dress you saw last week (below). This time, when we wrapped, we made some additional images as shown above. . .some pretty swanky portraits, I think.

To take them a little beyond the norm we used a "beauty dish," which pretty much looks like a giant mixing bowl with a disk inside. Essentially, by making a bounced, indirect light source, it creates a lovely cone of contrasty light - don't you think?

Back in late November, when we covered the North Shore Animal League Gala, we also donated a portrait sitting to the League's silent auction. The winning couple of the auction (thanks for your generosity!) brought their two pugs into Port Washington to shoot their session, and we had a fun time (the dogs the most, I dare say) romping around the waterfront in Port Washington with late afternoon light to help us make the images. We went with a black & white conversion on many of them, as the grass was more brown than green this time of year, so kind of unattractive. I'm delighted to report our auction winners love the proofs, but now are so torn between color and b&w on the delivery prints that we're stalled while they decide. No problem - would hate it if they didn't like them at all, so take your time!

I also made my way over to the campus of NYIT for a shoot to provide photographs for their magazine, and had a history lesson in the process. We made the portraits in the de Seversky Center, an enchanting corporate meeting and catering locale. The house was built in 1916 for businessman and philanthropist Alfred I. Du Pont, and was the set for a few scenes from the 1981 film Arthur, starring Dudley Moore (I took my first date ever to that movie...so go on, do the math...it was 7th grade...).

Atbove-left is the new Director of Alumni Relations, Mr. Joseph Fortini. Mr. Fortini is a tall and charming man with a great sense of humor and clever wit, so in addition to having a great setting to make some nice portraits of him we had a little fun with the shoot, too.

Special thanks to the mag Editor Michael; Michael, I won't forget to dig up that Lucas item I mentioned...and thanks for everything.