From the Archives
Stray Dog
August 19, 2009
Stray dogs are a common sight in most Argentine cities. And while many of them look pretty ragged, you can often tell that there’s a beautiful animal under all that tousled fur. The one on the right was our favorite. And the heartbreaking thing is that she totally knew it: She followed us around for a long time, clearly doing everything in her power to get herself adopted.
The photo was shot in central Salta, which is a lovely little city in northwestern Argentina. I fired off a few quick frames at knee level, to capture a dog’s eye perspective of the world. Because the image is taken at point blank range, with a wide open aperture, almost everything is out of focus. But her eye, with that deep gash—maybe from a fight with another dog—is tack sharp, and becomes the focal point of the image.
I’m not sure if it’s the injury that gets me, or her expression of guarded hope, or maybe just the sense of isolation from the blurry locals in the background. But this is one of my favorite images from Argentina.
Funnily enough, as this dog was following us around, she appears in quite a few other photos. In this slightly more cheerful image, she is hovering patiently while I’m trying to find a good angle on an inside-out magazine stand.
Subscribe to the News Feed
Follow Me on Twitter