The Story Behind the Studio

When my dog Jordan died, I went looking for a photograph that felt like him. Not a snapshot from a walk. Not a blurry image from across the yard. Something that captured who he was — the way he watched me from across the room, the particular warmth of his expression when he knew we were about to go somewhere together.

I couldn't find one. And that absence stayed with me in a way I wasn't expecting.

Hoof & Howl was born from that feeling. I trained in fine art portraiture not because I wanted to be a “pet photographer,” but because I wanted to make something that I wished had existed for me — a real portrait, gallery-quality, made for the wall, made to last.