Working with natural light, especially on a bright sunny day can be challenging at times. However, the resulting warm and engaging portraits created from shooting in late afternoon sunshine make it all worthwhile.

Backlighting your subject is a beautiful way to separate them from the background, giving your images an instant glow-up. That is exactly what we wanted to see for challenge number 10, Glow-Up. Beautiful, golden hour, warm glowy backlit images, with a clearly defined rim light around the subject.

As always. we were not disappointed, with a stunning set of submissions for the Glow-Up challenge. These are our top 10, which includes two Nova Scotia duck tolling retrievers! Huge congratulations to all the photographers.

- Craig & Charlotte 📸 🐶 ✨

Carol Mudra | Apawture Studios

This little Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever is looking fantastic sat dead centre of this composition. The backlight and low contrast, hazy background reall add emotion to the image and the expression is lovely.

Jackie Searies | Photos By Jackie.S

What a gorgeously textural image, the detail in the fur is wonderful! Great pose and composition, warm colour palette and fantastic use of rim light.

Kaori Stewart | Kaori Stewart Photography

Beautiful light coming from behind the subject and the rim light is clearly defined against the dark background. The pose is stunning and the texture in the fur has been edited beautifully.

Kay Tompkins 

What a warm sunny image this is. The light has been balanced well between back light and ambient light falling on the front of the subject. 

Margaret Buckman | CapraCam

This is a challenging shot to get usually, never mind adding in the challenges of backlighting! Each dog is beautifully rim-lit and they all have great expressions. This is an excellent group portrait.

 Polona Železnikar 

Warm, sun-drenched, bokelicious, vibrant and alive! This is a gorgeously captured action shot of this Nova Scotia duck toller. Beautifully rim-lit. The  very definition of the Glow-Up brief!

Samantha Brown | Samantha Brown Photography

What an engaging pose! Gorgeously composed and the balance of back light and light falling on the subject is perfect.  

Tehya Hunter | Collie Tales Pet Photography

This is such a bright and airy feeling image and really represents the Glow-Up challenge brief perfectly. Beautifully lit, bright sparkly catchlights and perfect rim light!

Wendy Abbey

The slightly darker, richer colours of this image really made it stand out. The rim light is beautifully handled and the dogs expression and eye contact are lovely.

Yvonne Jansen | BlissfulTails

The movement of this dog really adds emotion to this richly toned image. The light has been well handled and showcases the Glow-Up we're looking for in this challenge.

Are you ready to transform your pet photography in just 6 months?

The Unleashed Challenges are a series of 3 interactive challenge based courses, Embark, Emerge and Empower. Each one with 12 challenges running over 6 months. 

Much more than just a challenge, Then Unleashed challenges are an invaluable educational resource that will help you build up a go-to list of shots to help create variety in your work. Designed for anyone to be able to complete whether you just want to photograph your own dog or you are a professional pet photographer.

If you'd like to know more, head over here to register your interest.