Natalie Arber, The Most Pawsome Friend (PEOPLE 2023)

This series of images is a documentation of my daughter’s love of dogs. On holidays in Hawaii and missing her dogs back home, she took every opportunity to connect and play with local dogs on the beaches. This particular morning she saw a Pointer on his daily beach stroll digging up the tunnel she had been working on while playing in the beach. She thought this was hilarious and ran up to him laughing playfully but at first he thought she was upset and he looked at her guiltily with those droopy sad doggy eyes. He quickly realised her affection for him and they became fast friends, hanging out in the water. As a dog lover I enjoy capturing the joy and unconditional friendship a dog offers but in this instance I felt incredibly grateful to capture a story which displays the way a dogs friendship will bring out love, compassion, happiness and contentment in us as humans, particularly in children who are developing social and emotional skills as well as theory of mind.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.