Supersizing Juji the dream job
Juji isn’t really as big as he looks on Instagram, where he has become larger than life.
Bounding around the garden, Juji is, in fact, life-size. A little leggy perhaps, in the way that golden doodles – a cross between a golden retriever and a standard poodle – can be.
But neither is he the fuzzy white canine who towers over landscapes, people and cars, thanks to the digital wizardry of Chris Cline, who can’t quite get over what’s happening to his life. ‘‘It’s amazing,’’ Cline says. ‘‘We live in a country where I can make a living taking pictures of my dog.’’
On Cline’s Instagram account, @christophercline, Juji appears to be 2 metres, yet utterly normal – walking alongside Cline down a country lane, sprawled on the couch, leaping across a stream.
The marvels of Photoshop also enable more fanciful scenes: Juji and Cline on a cloud, Juji as a mighty steed, or being buzzed by airplanes atop the Empire State Building. You can’t help but smile. Chris Cline has been Photoshopping his golden doodle Juji – in a gargantuan proportion- into photos that have made his Instagram account a phenomenon and enable him to earn a living doing this for other people and their pets.
That’s really all there is to it: You scroll, you smile.
But hey, on some days, that’s a gift of incalculable value.
‘‘It’s like people know you can get away from everyday stuff,’’ Cline said of his more than 76,000 Instagram followers worldwide. ‘‘I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s an escape.’’
Little wonder that Cline says he’s inspired by Calvin and Hobbes, the revered comic that, for 10 years ending in 1995, captured the hearts and minds of countless readers.
‘‘It was all about their adventures together,’’ Cline said. ‘‘With Juji, I can see myself as a kid doing all this stuff.’’
There’s not a dog owner in the world who doesn’t loving sharing photos of their dog, so one day Cline began fiddling around on his computer, enlarging Juji until he loomed over his owner.
He posted the edits on Instagram, to his 800 or so followers. It was just for fun.
‘‘There was no definite start to this,’’ he said.
‘‘And when it happened, it didn’t happen the way things usually happen.’’
People started asking him to make similar images – he calls them edits – with their pets. Via e-mail, he tells them how to take a photo and what lighting to use. ‘‘Then I do an edit and send back a high-res image to them,’’ he said.
His tools are fairly vintage, as well: a basic camera, a 2000 Toshiba computer and a 1997 Photoshop program. He probably should upgrade, ‘‘but if you want to do something and you have the drive to do it, you can make it happen, whatever tools you have’’.
He charges US$50 for an edit – ‘‘$25 an hour, standard graphic designer rates,’’ he said with a shrug. He rises at 4am to keep up with demand, ideally being able to knock off work in early afternoon to take Juji for a walk.
For now, he said, he has a dream job.