Cause and Effect

I entered this photograph under the ‘Mongrel Section’ in the ‘Photographing Domestic Animals’ category: mongrel, even though the image is a blend of two thoroughbreds, both, the colour of shortbread, titled: 'Mixed-bred Shortbread'.

The judging panel commented favourably upon the well-seen shoulder-strap dualism - evident between the reigns of the blind-dog and the shoulder straps of the rucksack. But they were critical of the way the Labrador’s tail comes out of the standing dog’s ear - suggesting an undertone of unicorn. ‘Whilst one dog, entering or exiting another dog, is 'good photographic subject matter', tails, like trees, should never grow out of heads’, the head-judge said. ‘And tell me’, the said head judge continued, ‘did you have any small change on your person when you took this photograph?’ ‘I might have, I can’t remember, and how would loose change have improved the image?’ I replied.

‘Do I have to spell it out in Braille?’ this most visually aware of head-judges blurted. But he enlightened me in plain English. ‘When I look at that spot of vacant pavement beneath the near dog’s rear – the exact spot pointed at by its tail – I see a small deposit of loose change on the ground… that spot of street just cries out to be paved with gold’ ‘But first you should have asked the owner of the trainers to put a coin in the slot of the blind dog’s head, and snapped him doing so. Then you yourself should have dropped some coins and kicked them under the dog’s tail, before taking a second photograph: the resulting diptych illustrating, cause and effect.’