Iconic Dogs of London: The Story Behind the Project
- Andrew Raven
- Aug 11
- 5 min read
The idea for Iconic Dogs of London existed long before I knew exactly what it would become.
I had always wanted to photograph groups of dogs within a single frame. I love the movement that happens when several dogs are together, the different postures, expressions and personalities all appearing at once. One looking directly at me, another distracted by something happening further down the street, somebody sitting beautifully while somebody else has entirely different ideas.
There is an energy to it that I have always loved.
Then I saw Girls in the Window.
It was one of those photographs that stayed in my head. The composition, the repetition of the windows, the different figures occupying their own little spaces within one much larger scene.
That was when the project really began to find its direction.
From sketches on paper to the streets of London
I started drawing ideas.
Very rough drawings, it should be said.
Dogs in windows. Dogs positioned along buildings. Groups spread across architectural spaces. Little notes beside them about where somebody might sit, stand or look.
Then came the search for locations.
I began walking around London looking at streets and buildings differently. Windows became frames. Doorways became stages. Staircases, archways, columns, railings and stretches of pavement suddenly held possibilities.
I would find myself standing opposite buildings trying to work out whether a group of dogs could fit into the composition I had in my head.
Some ideas worked immediately. Others existed on scraps of paper for months before I found the right place.
The first of these bigger photographs also taught me something important about what I wanted the project to become.
I did not simply want to photograph lots of dogs together.
I wanted to create scenes.
Making dogs part of the London we recognise
London has been photographed millions of times.
The red buses, black cabs, grand hotels, Georgian townhouses, Underground stations, Union flags, stone facades and enormous landmarks are instantly familiar.
I wanted the dogs to belong within that visual language.
Sometimes that means something grand and unmistakably London. Sometimes it is a particular doorway, a row of windows or a street somebody may have walked along hundreds of times without ever really noticing.
The location is never simply somewhere to put the dogs.
It becomes part of the photograph.
That has taken the project from Mayfair townhouses filled with little faces peering through windows to groups beneath the flags of Regent Street, dogs standing proudly through the City of London and portraits created around some of the capital's most recognisable architecture.
Each photograph begins with the same question:
What could happen here?
And usually, very shortly afterwards: How on earth am I actually going to do it?
Why “Iconic Dogs”?
From the beginning, Iconic Dogs of London has been my way of putting gratitude into a portrait.
I never planned to work with dogs. Yet from those very early days of volunteering, through leaving the corporate world and eventually building the life I have today, the dogs who have come into my life have given me more than I can really put into words.
Life lessons. Fulfilment. A completely different direction.
In so many ways, they changed my life.
This project is my way of saying thank you to them, while celebrating something I have always found rather wonderful about dogs: their ability to steal our attention from almost anything.
I could be standing beneath Big Ben, looking up at one of the most recognisable landmarks in the world, and if a dog wandered past, my gaze would still drop and I would smile.
I think that says everything.
London may provide the grand architecture, the history and the spectacle, yet somehow the dogs still become the icons.
That is what I wanted these photographs to celebrate.
The photographs became more ambitious
As the project developed, so did the ideas.
One photograph would lead to another.
I would finish something I had been thinking about for months and, rather than feeling satisfied that I had finally done it, I would almost immediately start wondering what might be possible next.
Could there be more dogs?
Could the location be bigger?
Could I create something with more movement?
Could I take a familiar part of London and make somebody see it differently for a moment?
That curiosity has become a huge part of the project.
There is an enormous amount of planning behind many of the finished photographs, although once the dogs arrive, plans naturally become slightly more flexible.
That is part of the joy of it.
Dogs bring spontaneity to photographs that could otherwise become too controlled. A head turns. Somebody swaps position. A tail appears where I had not expected one.
Occasionally an entire plan has to be abandoned because one member of the cast has decided their creative contribution should be something completely different.
Those moments give the finished photographs life.
I never want the dogs to feel like props within an elaborate idea. Their personalities are the reason the idea works in the first place.
The people who have helped make it possible
One of the things I feel most grateful for when I look at the collection is how many people have trusted me with these ideas.
Some have sounded completely reasonable when I first explained them.
Others probably less so.
“Would you bring your dog to Mayfair very early in the morning so I can put them in the window of a townhouse with thirteen other dogs?” is a fairly particular request.
Yet people have said yes.
They have travelled across London, even accross Europe, got up at ridiculous hours, waited patiently while I moved dogs by a few inches, helped organise leads and treats and watched me stand in roads staring at buildings.
And, somehow, these drawings and thoughts have gradually become real photographs.
Every dog and every person who has taken part has helped build Iconic Dogs of London.
That means more to me that I can put into words.
What Iconic Dogs of London means to me
When I began, I do not think I understood how important the project would become to my work.
It gave me somewhere to put the ideas that were too big, too strange or too ambitious to leave alone.
It gave me permission to experiment.
Most of all, it brought together two things I love enormously: dogs and London.
London gives me an endless stage. Dogs make that stage infinitely better.
There are still streets I walk down and immediately start imagining a photograph. There are buildings saved on my phone. There are sketches waiting for the right opportunity.
There are ideas that currently seem completely impractical, which generally means I will probably try to make them happen at some point.
The collection will continue to grow.
The portraits have already begun finding their way into homes across the UK, Europe and across the Atlantic, which is something I still find incredibly special.
One day, Iconic Dogs of London will exist as a published coffee-table book: something physical that brings the photographs together and tells the story of the dogs, the city and the wonderful chaos involved in creating them.
For now, I am enjoying seeing where it leads.
What began as an idea to place several dogs within one photograph has become something far bigger than I imagined when I made those first little sketches.
And I am incredibly grateful for every dog who has stepped, sat, stared, wandered, wriggled or occasionally refused to cooperate their way into it.
Every dog was born an icon.
My job is simply to prove it.
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