Sarah Ause Kichas | saussie.com

diptychs

Sarah — Thu, 10 May 2012 03:14:47 +0000

I love diptychs. Years back, I was going through my old newspaper files, and stumbled upon a hilarious one. Then a year later, I watched this beautiful MediaStorm piece called Common Ground, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for them. The way the photographer (Scott Strazzante) shows parallels across different kinds of families across different eras is just awe-inspiring. My diptychs aren’t so affecting, but they are pretty.

When I’m not working, I don’t really use my SLR. I have become lazy and so I use a plethora of other (read: smaller) cameras, such as my point and shoot, toy film cameras, or most commonly, my iPhone. I phonograph (oh, the cheeze!) random things (though yes, mostly dogs), and I keep them in my phone (and my head). When I see something that reminds me of it, I photograph that too, forming a mental diptych in my head. But since I have decided to keep this site animals-only, you don’t get too see my Indian star chart/homemade pizza diptychs (at least here). Instead you get to see the cuter ones, the doggie diptychs. All of these were taken with my iPhone, using Instagram or Hipstamatic. I paired them together based on their similarities, either between colors, subject matters, or something else. In some cases, I cropped out the frames (like when a photo’s frame didn’t match the frame of the shot I was pairing it with). Most were taken the same day, some within a couple weeks, but one diptych’s photos are a year apart. Can you figure out which one?

Smokey

Sarah — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 03:31:18 +0000

Smokey is a feisty feline who was a long-time Sanctuary resident. She came to Best Friends as a kitten after a child lit a firecracker up her backside. Yes, you heard that right. She is lucky to be alive, but obviously had a lot of problems afterward, which are too numerous to name. The biggest perhaps, is that I remember her at the Sanctuary as not being able to walk. She was adopted last fall and moved to Salt Lake, so I went and photographed her in her new digs (this was back in December, but as everyone knows, I suck at blogging). But I almost didn’t recognize her! It was quite surprising to show up at her new home and find her darting around on all fours! Surgery back at the Sanctuary (which I was unaware of, not living there anymore) had fixed her! She settled down just long enough for a few shots. Actually, she barely settled down at all, I just hit the button at the right time. You have no idea how hard it was to get these. Feisty feline, indeed.

Trail Tails episode 5: dog cam

Sarah — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 03:20:04 +0000

Strut Your Mutt!

Sarah — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:11:05 +0000

It’s taken me a terribly long time to post these (what can I say, blogging doesn’t top my priority list these days), but I love the shots I got at Strut this year (back in September) so I wanted to share a few. It was much better than 2010 (which took place in a paved parking lot at the Santa Monica Pier and along a busy roadside). I hope we keep this venue (Pan Pacific Park) for next year’s too!

playtime at Cat World

Sarah — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:36:32 +0000

Another cute video I did for work. Playing with kittens? Never gets old. Never.

Trail Tails episode 4: Spiral Jetty

Sarah — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:27:45 +0000

I shot this video way back in September, but have been lazy at video editing (it’s really time consuming and I have been too busy a bee). I finally got around to chopping it up last night into this little ditty. Now I’m on a roll and going through tons of old(ish) files, piecing together a bunch of videos (though they aren’t of the Trail Tails variety). Some I will post here, others on my other site. Regardless, I have some awesome video things in the works, so stay tuned!

Anyway, this trip to Spiral Jetty was special because it turned into a nightmare. The video doesn’t show the nightmare (I turned my camera off), but it turns out there’s some tar dumped out there (WHO THE HELL DUMPS TAR IN A LAKE?!?!?!), and Haley and Jemma both stepped in it. Besides fearing they’d die from eating it off their feet, we all got to breathe in the tar fumes during the two-hour ride home. We tried to soap it off with handsoap from a public bathroom (failed), used heavy duty cleaners at a friend’s (failed, and not recommended), and scissors (also failed). Just as I was about to give up and call a vet, I googled dogs stepping in tar (seems like it should be a pretty common occurrence, only on roads instead of at a lake) and found the answer… vegetable oil. Vegetable oil will get tar off your dogs. It’s slow, but it works. And so now you know: if you ever find yourself in as terrible a situation as that, vegetable oil will save you.

Anyway, here’s a video of the nicer parts of that trip… before the nightmare began. And yes, the water really is that color. It’s not pollution, but salt-tolerant bacteria that thrives in that remote northern part of the lake.

Here are some neato photos from another trip to the Jetty. The water was much lower last year, and in my opinion, much more beautiful. Shallow water makes for an alien landscape. This year, it was about a foot deeper.

invisible dogs

Sarah — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:15:07 +0000

Over the past four years at this job, I’ve photographed a wide range of animal species. Cats, dogs, horses, parrots, and bunnies come standard, but I’ve also photographed bobcats, degus, manatees, chimpanzees, and so on. But one thing I certainly never expected was invisible dogs.

Yep, invisible… as in not actually there. Our latest campaign encourages you to start seeing invisible dogs – meaning the thousands of dogs tucked away in shelters, out of sight. Invisible dogs are just as good as other dogs, they just need to be seen.

I did seven shoots for this campaign over the summer. And let me tell you, anyone who says that kids and animals are the hardest to photograph (I don’t really agree with that) has never photographed invisible ones. Now THAT is hard!

Here are a couple shots that our designers stylized with those vintage color filters (they did that for all the ads).

Salt Lake City and New York City were the target cities for these ads (although online ads reached much further). I’ve seen iDog billboards here around SLC, but not with photos. New York City is where all the outdoor photo ads like these seem to be:

For this campaign, I also shot my first video for work. I had just gotten a new camera and the day of a shoot I had scheduled, my boss told me to take a video too. He gave me the story line, and although I came down sick, I shot a video and it turned out pretty cute! And then I found out it was a commercial on Hulu. I kind of lost it then, in a good way. Not bad for the first time!

It was a ton of hard work, quite grueling trying to get something that’s not there to look like a dog, but in the end it turned out pretty cool, and it seems to be a big hit all around the country.

Mr. Kitty

Sarah — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:08:19 +0000

This is Mr. Kitty and his family. They adopted him recently after he lost his home at the Provo airport. It’s a sad, happy, interesting story you can read all about here.

He immediately reminded me of my decrepit old foster cat, Soni (who passed away last year). He has that geriatric swagger, waxy hair, and the so-ugly-it’s-cute face, just like Soni did. Oh, grandpa cats, how I love thee…

Phoebe

Sarah — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:26:39 +0000

I first met Phoebe back in April at the Salt Lake City Super Adoption. I took a couple photos when she was leaving with her new family, but it was cold, blustery, and SNOWING outside! I could only get off two shots before my fingers froze and my lens was covered in water from melted snowflakes. But they were all so adorable together (and matching!) that I got their contact info knowing that I’d want to catch up with her in a few months time. Fast forward five months, and I went over to their house to see big, beautiful Phoebe. She looks like a retriever mix in these photos, but that’s her haircut playing tricks on you. She is more of a Great Pyrenees! She’s doing great and is probably the most patient, tolerant dog to put up with two young boys!

an update from Aramis

Sarah — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 01:11:36 +0000

I’ve written about Aramis many times before, but not for years. About two and a half years ago, he was adopted by one of our staff members. When I was down at the sanctuary for a week back in September, I caught up with my favorite bird and took this video. He is the best!