See the full set: my World’s Ugliest Dog Competition take on Getty Images.
For nearly a decade, one of my favorite assignments of the year has been the World’s Ugliest Dog Competition, which I photograph for AFP. This year it ran in Santa Rosa on August 14, and the winner was Jinny Lu, a rescue pug who took home first place, a $5,000 award, and a trip to New York.
Sometimes cute, sometimes ugly, all of them happy
People assume this event is mean-spirited until they attend. It is the opposite. Most of the contestants are rescues, many with the kind of medical histories that would have ended their stories anywhere else, and the whole competition is a celebration of the dogs that got a second chance. Some are genuinely adorable. Some have faces only a wire service could love. Every single one of them is having the best day of its life, and the crowd is having it right along with them.
This year’s breakout was Otto, a chihuahua mix with a severe double cleft lip and cleft palate, who took third place and stole every camera in the room. You do not point a lens at Otto so much as surrender to him.
Why I keep coming back
After a decade, I know this event the way I know a fire line or a keynote stage: where the light falls, when the judges lean in, which handlers will hold their dog up like a trophy at exactly the right moment. Shooting it well is the same craft as any assignment, get close, wait for the real expression, and let the subject be entirely itself. The subjects here are just better at that than most executives.
These photographs moved on the AFP wire and are distributed by AFP and Getty Images. I retain copyright on comparable outtakes and license those directly for editorial and educational use. If you are covering the competition, tell me the moment you need and I will send a matching selection.