100 Strangers : Round 5 : No .420 : Dhiren and Shiva
On Sunday we went to the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Nottingham City centre. I took some photos in the market square, but was a little disappointed as the event seems to have lost some of it vibrancy and feeling, since the demise of the parade (the parade was dropped post Covid). The events in the market square seemed very low key and there was too much down time on stage between performers. That’s just my opinion, others may differ.
Anyway, my wife and I decided to go for a drink, not something we do very often, drink in bars. We didn’t really know where to go, we had a wander down Hockley and we were on the point of going home when I suggested the Broadway Cinema. It’s an independent cinema venue and has some bars, cafe’s and a big outside terrace, that was bathed in some warm sunshine (the first of the year).
We took a seat on the terrace and people watched with a beer for me and wine for my wife (I rarely drink beer !). We were sat close to the entrance to the cinema and noticed a couple walking in the venue with a dog.
“Excuse me” I said “Are dogs allowed in the venue?”
“Well I hope so, we’ve been here before”
“Ahh that’s good, we could bring our whippet next”
Jane and I smiled at the cute dog.
A few minutes later the dog and one of it’s humans appeared on the terrace.
“Can I ask you what kind of dog it is? It looks really cute”
It’s human, Dhiren, told us it was a Podenco, a Spanish dog. His name was Shiva and he’d been rescued from Spain over two years ago. Dhiren told me Podenco’s come in various sizes and were bred to chase rabbits. Shiva was well behaved especially off lead. We then had a doggy conversation, I showed him some photos of Elsie, our whippet, on my phone, Dheren got quite excited and said she looked beautiful. She does , she has amazing eyes and is very photogenic.
I then asked if I could take some photos for my strangers project. Dhiren suggested he held Shiva, which I thought was a good idea. As you can see in the photos, Dhiren really loves Shiva, there’s a real bond between them. As I was showing Dhiren the photos on the back of the camera, his partner arrived and I showed the photos to him. Jane said he looked a little surprised to see Dhiren taking part in a photoshoot.
Beautiful portrait capture. Shiva looks lovely with his rather big and very alert ears and very homely. His human dad has a nice subdued smile. Interesting story too.
