Sweet Noir. He’s the first Giant Schnauzer I’ve had the pleasure to photograph, and he’s a big, gentle giant. His mom contacted me on September 30th, when they first found out he had Lymphoma. She said, at best, he would have 4-6 months left. We scheduled our session for October 9th, early in the morning to get some nice sun. It was an amazingly beautiful day – blue skies, fall leaves at their peak. Noir was doing better than he had in days, and really seemed to enjoy getting out and having photos taken. I hung out with his family for almost 3 hours, just chatting, drinking coffee, and talking about their awesome aquarium, the cats, the dogs, and Picasso, the tortoise that lives in the backyard. They live just minutes from me, and it’s fun to talk about the neighborhood and how we both go to the same vet.

The very next morning, Noir’s mom emailed to say that the timing of our session could not have been better. Since then, he had refused food and meds, and had clearly made his decision that it was time to go. That afternoon, just over a week from the diagnosis, they said goodbye to their noble boy.

He held on long enough for his family to do this last, important thing, for which I know they’ll be forever grateful. Thank you, Sir Noir.

I wanted to share my favorite image of Picasso as well…. he was leery of me.