I had no idea what dog I was looking at. Luckily, Yael did.​

We traveled to England to make one of Yael’s dreams come true, visiting Crufts, the biggest dog show in the world. For Yael, who has loved dogs her entire life and knows a ridiculous amount about them, this was heaven. Thousands of dogs, rare breeds, people from all over the world, and of course... buying way too many things for our own dogs.

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For me? I was excited to experience Crufts, but I also know myself pretty well... I knew one day of watching dogs standing perfectly in a ring would probably be enough for me. I wanted to do what I love the most, take dogs outside, find beautiful urban locations, and create epic photos.

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And Birmingham was way too beautiful to spend a full week there without photographing, so like always when I travel somewhere new, weeks before the trip I started searching online for dog models. Usually this works great.

This time? Not so much... after long weeks of searching, I had maybe 2-3 dogs. For a full photography trip, that’s basically nothing.

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So I arrived in Birmingham with my new amazing professional backup plan: walk around the city with business cards and randomly approach people with beautiful dogs. What could possibly go wrong?

Well... after walking for hours around the city, we found basically nothing. I think the highlight was an old Pinscher and another dog with a homeless guy...

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Late that evening we were sitting in a restaurant with friends, and suddenly I saw through the window a woman walking with a very interesting and weird looking dog... some kind of hunting dog, but honestly? I had no idea what I was looking at.

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Luckily, I have Yael.

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Yael looks for about 2 seconds and says: “Oh cool, an Italian Spinone.”

My immediate answer: “You just made that up.”

“No. It’s a real breed,” she said.

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So obviously, armed with my brand new 5-seconds-old professional knowledge, I ran outside to the lady...

“Wow! Is that an Italian Spinone?”

She was shocked. “Wow! How do you know that?!”

And of course I answered with full confidence: “Well... I know all the breeds, I’m a dog photographer.”

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After all these years, this is basically our system. Yael has an insane amount of dog knowledge, and I have an insane amount of confidence repeating what she just told me.

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Anyway, they were in Birmingham for Crufts, I gave her my card, told her I would love to photograph her dog while we’re there, and the next morning at 7AM we were walking around the city creating photos.

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And then I discovered the even crazier part... they came all the way from Kazakhstan!! By car!! 7 days on the road!! Just to bring her dog to Crufts.

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Oh, and of course she has a brother living in Israel.

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Find someone smarter than you, repeat what they say with enough confidence, and eventually people will think you know what you're doing.