Twelve Challenges, Six Months, One Very Patient Dog: My Unleashed Education Embark Journey
When I signed up for the Unleashed Education Embark challenge last year (2025), I thought I knew what I was getting myself into. Twelve photo challenges, spread across six months, all built around pet photography. Easy enough, right?
I was wrong — in the best possible way.
Siren in the studio
Stepping Out of the Studio
If you've worked with me before, you probably know Furever Photos lives and breathes studio sessions. Controlled lighting, a clean backdrop, a space where I can control every variable before a single paw hits the floor. It's where I'm most comfortable, and it's where a lot of my best work happens.
Embark asked me to leave all of that behind.
Most of the twelve challenges pushed me outdoors, into natural light, into whatever the sky decided to throw at me that day. And if you've lived in Edmonton for any length of time, you know exactly what that means: mosquitos, unpredictable weather, light that shifts to golden only late in the evening, and weather that can change in 10 minutes. Planning a shoot here isn't just "check the forecast" — it's building in backup plans for your backup plans.
These challenges are tough and this was my best result
Every challenge forced me to problem-solve in real time. No controlled lighting, just finding the right hour, the right angle, the right patch of shade or open sky. No calling a break to reset a backdrop — just adapting to whatever the location gave me. It was humbling, and it was exactly the kind of discomfort that makes you a better photographer.
Mocha has mastered the head tilt
Mocha, My Constant Collaborator
Every single one of the twelve challenges featured my dog Mocha. Six months is a long time to ask one dog to be your model, your test subject, and your creative partner — but if there's one thing agility training has taught Mocha, it's patience and focus, and both of those served us well over the course of this project. Although she wasn’t always into the challenge and needed help from my wife to get some of the shots.
Mocha tolerated my challenges but only if there was the promise of chasing a ring later on. Fortunately, having spent a fair bit of time doing agility has made her good at listening to me and being ready for action.
These are my final 12 images
What I Took Away From It
Looking back on those six months, a few things stuck with me:
Outdoor light is a different language than studio light.
Weather isn't the enemy — it's a variable to plan around.
Its important to location scout and to not leave things to the last minute.
Using my own dog allowed me to plan my schedule without worrying about others.
By the end of the twelve challenges, I was more comfortable shooting outdoors for pets.
What's Next: Emerge
That comfort is exactly what I needed, because I'm now deep into the next level of this journey: the Unleashed Education Emerge Image Competition. This time, the challenges look a little different. Instead of leaning on Mocha for every single shoot, I'm working with a variety of dogs, and only occasionally bringing my own into the frame.
It's a whole new set of problems to solve — every dog has a different personality, a different comfort level with the camera, a different way of moving through a space. I am also asking dog owners to help me out. Some plans work better than others. I'll be sharing that experience in my next post, including what it's like building trust with dogs I've just met, instead of a dog who already knows me inside and out.
If the Embark challenge taught me to trust the process outdoors, Emerge is teaching me to trust new dogs, quickly. Stay tuned.
