All photos © Ed Panar.

While exploring the streets and back roads of North America, Pittsburgh based photographer Ed Panar has sometimes found himself unexpectedly confronted by other beings. For a moment, eye contact is made and a kind of mutual recognition is felt. Animals That Saw Me, published by The Ice Plant, is a quiet and often hilarious series of photographs pulled from his archive spanning 17 years recording some of his most unexpected encounters with the nonhuman world. A meditation on the uncanny moment of acknowledgement between species, the photographs in Animals That Saw Me reminds us that we must appear at least as strange to them as they do to us. – courtesy The Ice Plant.

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All Photos © James Mollison/represented by MAP.

James Mollison set up a mini photo studio in one of Tokyo’s canine spas and photographed a bunch of its lovely furry clients.

-courtesy MAP

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© Vincent J Musi.

National Geographic photographer Vince J Musi is an award winning photographer whose unique take on animal photography was recognized in the 2011 PDN Photo Annual. The early deadline for the 2012 Photo Annual is TODAY at midnight PST. The image above  is from a story on wild things bred for their aggressive behavior. Scientists in Novosibirsk, Russia, are comparing these rats to those bred for friendliness to understand the connection between genetics and behavior.

All photos © Carol Beuchat.

Carol Beuchat started photographing dogs in 1999 while in South Africa as an Honorary Professor at the Univ. of Cape Town. Since returning to the States in 2003 Beuchat has been dedicated to dog photography full time. She explains, “Dogs are such interesting animals, perhaps more than we generally realize if we only see them as pets.  At the dog park, the leash is off,  the dogs are free to interact with each other (if the owners will let them), and what you can observe is real canine behavior.  I started photographing at the dog park while there with my own dogs, and I was astonished at the amazing facial expressions, the athletic maneuvers, and all the teeth on display while they played each other. As fierce as the dogs might look in photos, they are very careful not to hurt one another, and they even seem to calibrate the roughness of play to the size and age of the playmate.  I’ve come to really appreciate how differently dogs play with each other than they do with people, and also that providing dogs with the opportunity just to be with other dogs really enriches their lives.”

Beuchat recently self published DOGSPLAY: The Joy of Being a Dog, which is available in hardcover from Blurb or as an eBook on her website.

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All photos © Rod Morata.

Most photographers bring their cameras with them everywhere they go, so a unique moment or interesting discovery doesn’t go undocumented. Rod Morata, a Brooklyn-based editorial photographer, decided to take this idea one step further and commit to taking at least one photo each day of the year. Morata says, “In 2011, I started a 365/photo-a-day project for the first time in years and brought a camera with me everywhere I went to document everyday [life].  I’ve seen a lot of 365 projects in the past and thought it would be a great photo exercise to start one of my own. I was curious to see what I would come up with and what a year of my life would look like in pictures. Generally, I take portraits and photograph in a more controlled environment. This was a good opportunity to work outside of my comfort zone and record interesting things I see but usually don’t photograph.”

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