Not Every Great Photograph Needs Eye Contact

I don’t talk very often about my experiences with search and rescue. Most of the time, I was working a dog or playing the missing person rather than carrying a camera. But when I started thinking about photographs where the animal isn’t looking at the camera, this one came to mind.

We were training on our regular grounds—a Texas cow pasture. Brett had her in a down stay while he walked away to set her scent source. For once, I had the camera in my hands.

She never looked at me.

Her attention stayed on Brett. She knew a search was coming, and she was waiting for him to finish so she could get to work.

Had she turned toward the camera, it might have made a more traditional portrait. Both ears forward, eyes on me, everything where people expect it to be.

But it wouldn’t have said as much about her.

The direction of her eyes is what makes the photograph. She wasn’t sitting beside a Jeep wearing a vest because someone thought it would make a good picture. She was a working

dog waiting for her assignment.

I think we sometimes get too caught up in the idea that a good photograph requires everyone to look at the camera. With animals, the opposite can be true. Where they look—and what holds their attention—can be part of the story.

A horse watching cattle across the arena looks different from one whose attention has been pulled toward the photographer. A dog watching its person shows a connection that disappears the moment it is asked to look somewhere else.

There is certainly a place for the photograph where everything comes together and the animal looks directly into the lens. I love those too.

But I don’t want every photograph to interrupt what was already happening.

Sometimes the better photograph is the one where the animal never notices the camera at all.