Project 52: Wide Open
Beautiful Beasties is an international assocation for proffesional pet photographers. Within this network there is a creative project called 'Project 52' and for 52 weeks a theme is selected and each photographer photographs their interpretation for the theme. This weeks theme is 'Wide Open'. This theme is very open to interpretation and it will be interesting to see the diversity of the photographs produced.
I wasn't sure where to begin for this theme, I had a few different ideas pop up, and then decided that by reversing the word order I had an idea that was strongly associated with the phrase 'Open Wide'. I decided I wanted to take a photo of a dog with its mouth wide open. When you go to a dentist 'Open Wide' means to stretch open the jaw. To produce this idea it would work best to photograph the dog yawning, but to get the dog to yawn is a whole different ball game. The other option would be to photograph a dog with it's mouth wide open moments before it catches a ball that has been thrown to it. I did some research on how to make a dog yawn and the research is quite interesting. Its been said for a long time, in humans that the yawn is contagious, and that once your friend starts yawning you tend to copy them. Well it turns out that dogs are also copy cats, and that they can catch a yawn from humans. A study conducted by Harr, Gilbert & Phillips (2009) found that dogs may yawn after hearing a human yawn, however the dog is signifanctly more likely to yawn if the human yawning is their owner.
The biological function of yawning has been marvelled, and is still not greatly understood. It has been believed that yawning demonstrated tiredness or that it increased oxygen to the brain, and due to it being 'contagious' it is also believed to be a sign of empathy, and in humans you are more likely to 'catch' a yawn if you have a greater emotional attachment to the person yawning. Since dogs are more likely to yawn in response to their owners yawn is this an example of their their ability to understand us and their connection with us? This kind of association would need further scientific studies as there may be many under lying factors that cause them to yawn after hearing a human yawn.
So I decided to implement the findings of Harr, Gilbert & Phillips (2009) into my project. I visited my parents farm so I could photograph a dog that I have an attachment to. I selected Dippy our Border Collie for this photoshoot, and then tried to make him yawn. I tried my best at faking a yawn on command to try and trigger him to yawn. Unfortunately it just seemed to make him bark. I persisted, but he kept barking (he is normally quite vocal). However during his barking, one of his barks came out more so as a yawn and was destinct different sound then the other barks he was producing. I wouldn't definately so it was a yawn but it had the sound at the end of a yawn. I managed to capture this yawn/bark and here is the results.
The first photo is of him 'yawning' and the following two are the sequentual photos taken directly after.
Here's a close up of the wide open photo since that is what this project is about.
To see the different interprations of the theme from around the world, follow each link on the blogs until you reach back here. Next to see is Tara Sutherland, New Zealand Pet Photography (Hamilton).
REFERENCES
Harr, AL, Gilbert, VR, & Phillips, KA, 2009. Do dogs (Canis familiaris) show contagious yawning?. Animal Cognition, [Online]. 12, 833-837. Available at: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10071-009-0233-0#page-1 [Accessed 31 January 2015].
