These brilliant and funny photographs of dogs are taken by British photographer and St Martin’s Graduate Tim Flach.

Bringing the viewer into close-up proximity with their animal subjects, paintstakingly lit, carefully cropped for maximum graphic impact and animated by telling gestures, Flach’s photographs place us in an intimate relationship with their protagonists. They are far removed from wildlife photography’s documentary images of animals observed in their natural habitat. In fact, the treatment accorded to these particular creatures is not dissimilar from the close encounters with individuals that are the stuff of human portraiture.

These are just a few from Tim Flach’s recently released book ‘Dogs’. And his exhibition will be held at the Osborne Samuel Gallery (London) on the 8th December 2010.