OFFmag: animals

Our pets are our friends --- our Little Friends! And they mean the world to us! Each of them has a unique and awesome personality, but it can be difficult to capture in a photograph.

Based in Los Angeles and Chicago and available nation-wide, Little Friends Photo specializes in lifestyle pet photography, embracing the at-ease mentality of pets on-location in their natural surroundings. The results are spontaneous, priceless moments of your pet's unique personality captured in photographs that will last forever.

Award-winning photographer Seth Casteel has been featured on GOOD MORNING AMERICA, EXTRA, CNN WORLD REPORT, THE TODAY SHOW, JEOPARDY! and in TIME Magazine. As one of the most published pet photographers in the world, his work can be seen in hundreds of magazines, calendars, posters, books and TV shows. Seth has also had the privilege of working with and photographing a variety of celebrities including Cesar Millan, Ellen DeGeneres, Amy Smart, Denise Richards, Perez Hilton, the cast of TWILIGHT and the cast of GLEE.

His passion for working with animals shines through in his craftsmanship, whether he's on location in Beverly Hills photographing a pampered pooch or volunteering at the local shelter taking pictures of dogs and cats to help find them forever homes. Please visit SecondChancePhotos.org to learn more about Seth's dedication to helping pets through photography.

Little Friends Photo is a unique experience for pet owners who feel their pets deserve the very best. It would be an honor to create a series of images that reflect how special they truly are.

http://littlefriendsphoto.com

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Guido Daniele

Guido Daniele is an extremely talented artist and his collection of "Handimals" is proof.After attending art school he began working as a hyper-realistic illustrator in 1972 with many large promotional and advertising corporations throughout the world. After experimenting and trying a few different painting methods he found his stroke with body painting in 1990. What started as body painting for advertising pictures, commercial, fashion events, and other exhibitions has turned into more than Guido could have possible imagined.
The "Handimals" collection originally started when Daniele was hired by an advertising agency to do some body paintings of animals. Instantly he took passion in the idea. "I researched each animal in depth to see how I could transfer it to a hand, and then set about bringing it to life." The first "Handimal" was the cheetah, and to this day is still his favorite. "It turned out perfectly the first time and gave me the courage to complete the rest of the set."
Most commonly, Daniele uses his son (Michael James, 15) and daughter (Ginevra, 22) as his primary canvases. "If you're spending hours on end holding someone's hand, I'd rather it be the hand of someone I love. There's nothing worse than working with a nervous, unfamiliar model whose hands are shaking." On average the typical "Handimal" takes around three to four hours to paint in its entirety. However the first time Daniele painted the eagle with outstretched wings clocked in at ten hours upon completion.
Daniele admits that the hardest part is not the painting itself, but rather having to watch his paintings be washed down the drain and disappear on a daily basis. "I'm getting used to it. At least I get to start each day with a fresh canvas."
fuente: http://www.shayhowe.com/inspiration/handimals-stunning-hand-painting-illusions/

http://www.guidodaniele.com

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William Wegman

William Wegman was born in 1943 in Holyoke, Massachusetts. He received a B.F.A. in painting from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston in 1965 and an M.F.A. in painting from the University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana in 1967. From 1968 to 1970 he taught at the University of Wisconsin. In the fall of 1970 he moved to Southern California where he taught for one year at California State College, Long Beach. By the early 70s, Wegman's work was being exhibited in museums and galleries internationally. In addition to solo shows with Sonnabend Gallery in Paris and New York, Situation Gallery in London and Konrad Fisher Gallery in Dusseldorf , his work was included in such seminal exhibitions as "When Attitudes Become Form," and "Documenta V" and regularly featured in Interfunktionen, Artforum and Avalanche.

It was while he was in Long Beach that Wegman got his dog, Man Ray, with whom he began a long and fruitful collaboration. Man Ray, known in the art world and beyond for his endearing deadpan presence, became a central figure in Wegman's photographs and videotapes. In 1981, Man Ray died. It was not until 1986 that Wegman got a new dog, Fay Ray, and another collaboration began marked by Wegman's extensive use of the Polaroid 20 x 24 camera. With the birth of Fay's litter in 1989, Wegman's cast of grew to include Fay's offspring — Battina, Crooky and Chundo — and later, their offspring: Battina's son Chip in 1995, Chip's son Bobbin in 1999 and Candy and Bobbin's daughter Penny in 2004. Out of Wegman's involvement with this cast of characters grew a series of childrens' book inspired by the dogs' various acting abilities: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, ABC, Mother Goose, Farm Days, My Town, Surprise Party and Chip Wants a Dog (all Hyperion). Wegman has also published a number of books for adults including Man's Best Friend, Fashion Photographs and William Wegman 20 x 24 (all Abrams) and Fay and The New York Times Bestseller Puppies (both Hyperion).

Wegman has created film and video works for Saturday Night Live and Nickelodeon and his video segments for Sesame Street have appeared regularly since 1989. His videos include Alphabet Soup, Fay's Twelve Days of Christmas and Mother Goose. In 1995, Wegman's film The Hardly Boys was screened at the Sundance Film Festival. After a twenty year hiatus, Wegman returned to the format of his video work from the 70s producing two new series of video works in 1998 and 1999. A collection of his selected video works from 1970-99 was recently released on DVD by Artpix.

Numerous retrospectives of Wegman's work have been made among them "Wegman's World," which opened at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis in 1981 and toured the United States and "William Wegman: Paintings, Drawings, Photographs, Videotapes," which opened at the Kunstmuseum, Lucerne in 1990 traveling to venues across Europe and the United States including the Pompidou Center, Paris and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. More recent exhibitions have included retrospectives in Sweden, Japan, Korea and Spain and, most recently the exhibition "Funney/Strange," which opened at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 2006 with a catalogue published by Yale University, making its final stop at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus in the fall of 2007.

William Wegman lives in New York and Maine where he continues to make videos, to take photographs and to make drawings and paintings.

http://www.wegmanworld.com