Project Statement:
“DOG PLAYS” is an ongoing book project exploring the comedy and drama of naturally occurring canine interaction from novel, intimate perspectives. Using transformative lighting and often snapping thousands of frames to successfully freeze just one rare moment of rapid-fire rough-housing or ephemeral doggie romance, my aim is to capture physical and emotional expressions often not discernable to the human eye, at the height of a dog’s intensity and joy.
The resulting images evoke crazed football skirmishes or hammy theatrical stills, glorifying a rich variety of furry four-legged players who had no idea they were ready for their close-ups.
Artist Bio:
Lara Jo Regan is a photographer and filmmaker whose diverse career spans the magazine, fine art and journalistic worlds. She honed her skills as a regular contributor to leading publications such as TIME, Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly and Life. She has won many of the field’s top honors, including numerous Communication Arts and American Photography accolades, NPPA Pictures of the Year awards, and the coveted World Press Photo of the Year.
Regan now divides her time between fine art/documentary projects that explore poverty, immigration, class issues and consumerism (with an emphasis on their relation to Southern California culture), and fun-loving ventures with canine muses for therapeutic comfort and comic relief. She currently has a full-page photo column, Lara Jo Regan’s Sights UnScene, in Artillery, an arts and culture magazine, and is the author of five books of dog photography, which have been distributed throughout the world. Her animal photography and other work is widely collected and exhibited. She is a longtime resident of Southern California.
