In dogged pursuit of a plastic ball or some phantom prey. The results are surprising and funny: well-lighted action shots of goofy, gangly or bug-eyed pups with teeth bared Which lasts more than an hour and involves some coaxing to get the dog comfortable, he asks for $895. Casteel, who runs Little Friends Lifestyle Pet Photography, charges about $450 for a standard hourlong session with a dog.

His phone, meanwhile, was ringing off the hook with callers wanting to Casteel was, in fact, underwater on Monday afternoon - in a swimming pool in Temecula, Calif., with a Boston terrier named Rocco. If you then spoke to someone at Tandem Stills + Motion, which represents part of his portfolio, you may have heard: “He’s actually in a pool right now.” If you tried calling the pet photographer Seth Casteel early Monday afternoon, you likely reached his voice-mail greeting: “Heeeeey, this is Ace Ventura, pet detective - I mean … ” View more at his home page or visit him on Instagram, Facebook. Dogs inspire us!” All images courtesy of Seth Casteel. Dogs prove to us that if you just jump in, you might have fun along the way. Before meeting me, most of them had never been underwater before and some had never even been swimming. All of the dogs featured in this project chose to participate of their own free will. “It is one of my life’s pursuits to explore the emotion of dogs and is my belief that they have a range of emotions similar to human beings. When asked about his motivation for this series, Seth makes a clear case for man’s best friend: He has since put his fame to good use, educating animal ambassadors around the world to improve the image of rescue and adoption via positive, uplifting photography. The bet paid off in spades, and his photos reached 100 million people on social media overnight - a move that would eventually earn him a New York Times Best selling book deal. Seth was pleased with the photo but wanted to improve image quality so he took a chance, spent the remaining balance of his credit card on an underwater camera housing designed for surf photography. At that precise moment, Seth had a thought that would change his life “I wonder what he looks like under there” He promptly bought a point-and-shoot underwater camera and took the first shot of his virally popular series “Underwater Dogs”. He had everything set up but the dog would not cooperate, showing a lot more interest in the pool, which he repeatedly jumped into in pursuit of his favorite tennis ball.

In 2010, California photographer Seth Casteel was in his backyard trying to capture the perfect shot of his dog “Buster”.

Seth casteel