Mutts - Hardcover

SHARON MONTROSE is a professional photographer and the author of Lightweights; Labs: Lightweights Littermates; Dachshunds: Lightweights Littermates; Carry-Ons (all STC); and Cationary. She lives in Los Angeles with her two dogs, Simon and Avery.

Having previously focused her camera on purebreds and puppies (Dauchshunds: Lightweights Littermates), Montrose turns her lens on crossbreeds of all kinds in this playful coffee table book. Her photos-one of each subject-bring out the sparkle, intelligence, and sheer cheekiness of these rangy dogs. Intentionally stark, each dog is set against an all-white background, largely without props, and usually one dog per photo. That the resulting portraits are so engaging, and so deeply revealing of canine personality, is a measure of Montrose's skill, patience and camaraderie with her subjects. Her subjects are incredibly expressive-including a disgusted (or is that terrified?) terrier-chihuahua mix, a confused boxer-pit bull, and an akita-siberian husky-wolf mix touched with pure joie de vivre-and the occasional break from form-Pebbles and Bam-Bam, two collie-sheperd-retrievers, are photographed together; a two-photo sequence shows a very pregnant terrier-dachshund, followed on the next page by her seven puppies-make for happy surprises. The book has no text beyond the names of the dogs and their presumed parentage, which might cause some frustration-one does wonder what Beans, the terrier-cattle dog mix, did to cause him so much chagrin-but the priceless expressions on these mutt's mugs is worth the price of admission.
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