Paws Portraits JA captures the love and legacy of pets

Elise Dash McLeod and Mikhail McLeod, founders of Paws Portraits JA, turned tragedy into purpose when their cat, Gin, was mauled by dogs in their community. Gin’s death pushed the husband and wife duo to get more serious about the animal photography business to help pet owners capture timeless moments with pets.

Mikhail has been a photographer for years, while Elise is an avid pet lover, who has always loved the idea of capturing images of animals. However, with smartphone images not always as detailed as they would like, the couple decided to team up to professionally capture images of their own pets based on Mikhail’s talent and posted the photographs online. The buzz that followed led to them getting online inquiries about pet photography, birthing Paws Portraits JA in June 2024.

“We wanted to provide our service to people, and also, I’m just a huge animal lover and activist, and I wanted to capture street animals and wildlife. We wanted to capture timeless moments of people’s pets because it’s really important... . When I lose a pet, I feel so sad, and I just want to remember them forever, so I feel like I wanted people to have a really good portrait of their animals to hold on to for as long as they can,” Elise, the more talkative of the duo, told Saturday Living during an interview on Wednesday.

“At Paws Portrait JA, photography is more than just an art form for us. We wanted to capture animals in their essence, so it’s a heartfelt mission combined with a love for animals, wildlife and tactical photography,” she said.

The services they offer are edited photographs, 4K videos and slow motions or clips of animals in their essence.

Already, their work has been well-recognised, which led to the dog food brand, Victor, contracting them to capture images of animals needed for the promotion of their products.

The couple’s love for animals has also led them to adopt senior rescue animals.

“I take in rescue animals because every animal deserves to be loved. I don’t really do the breeding aspect. I don’t really purchase animals, so I’m very passionate about rescue animals, and sometimes when I go on the road, I carry food with me and just feed stray animals, and that’s why we take pictures of the stray animals as well,” Elise said.

HONOURING GIN

Mikhail said their cat, Leo, whom they took in following the passing of Gin, is an older rescue cat who needed a home.

“Gin was a rescue as well. We had him for almost three years. He was a street cat. He was a kitten on the road, and when we found him, he was starving. He could barely walk, so we took him in,” he said.

Speaking of Gin, Elise, who is also a singer, songwriter, pianist and beatmaker by the name Elise Dash, told Saturday Living of their close connection.

“He was amazing. He was my soul cat. Losing him was really difficult. I didn’t know if I wanted to get another cat, to be honest, but I really missed having a companion. I really missed having a little animal who was sleeping in my bed,” she said.

In addition to planning on offering a print service and working more with rescue organisations, such as the Jamaica Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (JSPCA), the duo hopes to take their photo shoots international.

“One of our dreams is to go abroad and capture [images of] some lions and some elephants, but right now, we want to capture the wildlife of Jamaica ... We hope to actually do some work for JSPCA as well,” Elise said.

Paws Portraits JA is on Instagram, @pawsportraitsja.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com