If you’ve adopted a dog from the Longmont Humane Society in the last 13 years, there’s a good chance that Marsha Steckling took their photo.
Steckling has photographed more than 4,000 adoptable canines during her time as a volunteer for the Longmont Humane Society. The shelter’s board of directors recently honored Steckling for her years of work as the shelter’s lead photographer.
“I love the atmosphere of the shelter,” Steckling said. “I like the shelter environment itself. They’re just doing a lot of good things there, you know, housing animals, helping animals and finding them new homes. I’ve always liked it since I stepped into one in New Orleans.”
Steckling has been a professional photographer since 2000, but she didn’t start doing dog photography until 2007. She went to New Orleans to volunteer after Hurricane Katrina and ended up helping out at an animal shelter, subsequently taking photos to document what was happening and falling in love with dog photography.
After she came back from New Orleans, Steckling, who lives in Boulder, wanted to volunteer at her local shelter but the Boulder Humane Society had a waiting list. Instead, she went to Longmont, where she now spends one to two hours a week photographing dogs up for adoption.
“You meet nine to 10 new friends every week with four paws,” Steckling said. “They’re just resilient animals. Dogs make you feel good. I just don’t get tired of it. I love it.”
Today, she leads the humane society’s photography team, which includes another dog photographer and three cat and small animal photographers. They’re assisted by volunteer animal handlers who bring the photo subjects out for their glamor shots, and there’s often a videographer as well.
Steckling said that when it comes to photographing dogs, she gets a read for the animal’s temperament in the first 10 seconds they’re together. She works according to the dog’s personality and navigates each one’s individual quirks.
For example, with a shy dog she might first let it get used to the scary-looking camera and offer it some treats, while with high energy canines she’ll usually make weird sounds to get their attention for a second. Steckling enjoys watching the animals grow through the shelter process and eventually find their home.
“You know, some dogs are there for quite a while,” she said. “Dogs who might have some kind of issue or just might be super rambunctious and big, or small and shy, it might take a while for them to find the right home, but they do. It’s just really nice to see that.”
Along with the fun of photographing a variety of dogs every week, Steckling knows that high quality animal photos are making a difference in the pets’ lives. Several studies have found that good pictures of rescue animals help shorten the time they spend in shelters.
“If you’re looking on a shelter website at dog pictures and they’re dark, sad, gloomy pictures of a dog cowering in the back of a kennel, it’s not very attractive,” Steckling said. “It’s hard to imagine that dog being your pet. But if you have a picture where they’re engaged with the camera, they’re outside, they’ve got a good expression — you can picture that dog being your pet.”
In her day job running Evie Photography, Steckling has found her niche photographing dogs and families — and especially families with dogs. After 13 years and 4,000 shelter dog photos, she also has no plans to stop her volunteer work at the humane society.
“As long as I’m being productive and making a difference with the shelter and doing what works for them, the dogs and myself, it’s a go,” she said.
