Autumn Walk

The best walk of the year, painted.

Low October sun coming in from behind and to one side, rim lighting the whole outline of the coat. Fallen leaves underfoot in amber and rust, thrown well out of focus so the colour reads as atmosphere rather than as detail. Breath just visible in the cold air. Ears up, because something moved in the hedge.

There is no costume in this one and that is deliberate. It sits in the catalogue as the answer for people who want a beautiful portrait and find dressing an animal up faintly ridiculous. Everything doing the work here is light and season, not wardrobe.

Backlighting is the technically difficult part and the reason this style looks expensive. Sun from behind separates the animal from the background, catches every loose hair at the edge of the silhouette, and turns a flat picture into one with depth. It is also the thing most phone photographs get wrong, which is why the version we make rarely looks like anything the owner has managed themselves.

It suits dogs best, and long or feathered coats best of all, because there is more edge for the light to find. Cats who go outside work beautifully too.

It is the least sentimental thing we make and, for a certain kind of owner, the only one they would ever hang.