This is my friend Elissa. Yeah, she kisses dogs on the mouth. She does other weird things too, like shoot paraplegic dogs and little baby kittens. But it’s okay. She’s a photographer. And a dachshund rescuer. She rescues them and puts them in unspeakable costumes.

As you can see, Elissa has an evil streak. I have solid proof. Elissa is a dog rescuer, and Jack and I are cat rescuers. Because most of getting an animal re-homed hinges on the right person seeing that they’re available and adorable, we need constant photos taken of our winsome wee kitties.

Elissa takes most of them. You can see dozens on our bookshop FB page “Tales of the Lonesome Pine LLC.” She also did the official portraits of our staff cats Beulah and Val-Kyttie (on the right).

Elissa has a way of getting to the core of the animals–or indeed of any photographic subject. She photographed the cover for the large print edition of Little Bookstore. She took my author photo. But the girl can just get silly, too. Because when I asked her to post “eye-catching, adorable” FB pics of our latest fosters, this is what she shot. Go ahead; post a caption. Everyone else did.

I love Elissa; who couldn’t adore a woman who takes in a paralyzed dog and shoots it? (That’s her Queen Bee dachshund, Nellie, in the wings; that pic went viral on social media in 2012 as “Why you don’t just Euthanize a Special Needs Dog.”)

Still, she can be a little bit insane sometimes. Comes of being blonde, I suppose…

Editor’s note: If you want to see more of Elissa’s animal photography, she has a page called Elp6n on Facebook.