A Girl and Her (Extremely Patient and Unnaturally Photogenic) Best Friend
Photographer Tara Israel takes her very beloved and admittedly funny-looking Pomeranian almost everywhere she shoots—from rural Kentucky liquor stores to salty fishing boats off the Hamptons. And she has the delightfully quirky photos to prove it.
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Interview by Noah Rosenberg
We had a million pets when I was a child. Cats, rats, dogs, salamanders… and if we got one we wanted it to have a friend. One cat turned into five, rats came in pairs, a turtle lived in our bathtub because someone broke the tank while cleaning it. I used the rats in a drunk driving PSA I made in a high school film class. We had a Doberman that ate $500 worth of Girl Scout cookies. I was mad because I was eight and wanted to eat $500 of Girl Scout cookies myself. I still do.
So it makes sense that I wanted a dog of my own when I went off to college. A big rescue dog that I would train to do impressive things and name after a First Lady. I loved a boxer I saw at the shelter. It was the color of red clay with muscles like a real boxer. I looked at collies and rottweilers online. However, as most love stories go, it didn’t turn out as planned. I ended up with a three-pound pomeranian puppy from a pet store. He was on sale because he was too tall and had scraggly …
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