Little Kids & Their Big Dogs

Photographer Andy Seliverstoff captures the joy and mutual confidence between...

IN HIS WORK photographing dog shows in Russia and across Europe, Andy Seliverstoff has access to many gorgeous dogs, including rare breeds. He says he has learned that these dogs “aren’t just beautiful on the outside; they have amazing temperaments, and in particular the large and giant breeds have an innate gentleness that truly belies their stature.”

He became interested in photographing children and dogs when friends asked him to photograph their two- year- old daughter. “They showed up at the park with their Great Dane in tow,” he says. The St. Petersburg-based photographer was “blown away by the relationship between tiny Alice and gigantic Sean,” he says. He decided to incorporate him into the shoot.

Next came a photo session with a little boy named Theodore and Ringo the Newfoundland. “As with Alice and Sean, these photos touched me deeply,” he says. The images captured the special bond between children and dogs. “It’s a connection that doesn’t need words. Love, compassion, joy, trust, honesty and acceptance, to name a few, infuse the relationship. You can see it in their gestures, in their faces.” When he posted the photos on Facebook, he discovered that lots of other people felt that way, too.

In his 2017 book, Little Kids and Their Big Dogs, from which the photos shown here are taken, Seliverstoff aimed to capture and transmit the state of endless joy and mutual confidence between the children and the animals. The one big message, he says, is this: “Love for dogs and children makes people kinder.”