Featuring flying ears, long flapping tongues, and crazy eyes, these shots are hilarious and always front runners with dog lovers. A must to include in any clients image gallery!

Capturing animals in action would have to be one of the most demanding types of photography. They move erratically, they're relatively small, and they're different colours, shapes and sizes. And that's before you even consider the extra challenges you have in directing and influencing their movement. Once you have the know-how though it's all down to practice. And for these shots, you won't get many complaints about that from your doggy subjects.

So stepping up the difficulty level as we tackle challenge number 8 of Embark is precisely what our challengers need. We absolutely loved providing feedback on some really fantastic submissions for this challenge. But here, in no particular order, we're sharing our top 10 images, along with a few thoughts on why we loved them.

Charlotte & Craig 🐶 📸 ✨

Amy Hodson | Wander Pet Photography

There's a 3D quality to this image, the super shallow depth of field makes the dog seem as if it's running right out of the screen!

Angie Sunderland 

Spectacularly sharp, exactly what we need to see in these Front Runner challenge images. The light and colours are also beautifully seen and captured.

Brittani White 

What a happy sun-filled Front Runner! We love the little rubber ducky. The side light has been dealt with really well too.

Dawn Orr

This is definitely a hovering dog! What a perfect moment those little paws pushed together are so adorable and add a little something extra that we love to see in the challenge images!

Desiree Nickerson | Born 2 Run Photography

What a fantastic moment, captured super sharply. The colour treatment and edit have been done very well and the portrait composition works brilliantly.

Eva Duerkop 

A great point in the stride, well times and sharply captures and shot from a nice low and immersive angle. This has all the ingredients for a fantastic Front Runner submission.

Florence Araujo | Peanut & Bean Photo

What a happy expression! There's a little extra story-telling here with the winding pathway and fences which is lovely. 

Ginger Wick | Ginger Wick Photography

This image is so joyful, this dog's wild ears and crazy tongue add an extra level of humour to an already stunning capture.

Juliette Bercovici | Juliette Bercovici

Double the dogs, double the Front Runner fun! What a great moment and comical expressions on each of these corgi's. 

Teran Buckner | Phido Photography

A great point in the dog's stride, with front paws in the upstroke, wonderfully sharp. But really this Front Runner shot is all about those amazing ears!

Embark is made up of 12 challenges over 6 months and is the first interactive course in the Unleashed Challenges series.

Much more than just a challenge, Embark is 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 and we'll send you all the details when enrollment next opens in April 2024.