As loving pet parents, it can be bittersweet when your floppy, goofy puppy becomes a full-fledged, full-size dog. Gone are sleepless nights and chewed-up shoes, but that doesn’t make scrolling through your endless collection of puppy photos any less nostalgic.
For graphic designer and dog mom, Mandy Helwege, capturing “the good old days” for fellow pet parents has become a personal passion and business endeavor. Her Denver-based company, Seeing Double Edits (SDE), artfully merges the past and present by creating realistic portraits showcasing a pet next to its younger self.
At first glance, these gorgeous photos might look like a dog posing beside its mini-me, but they are actually a beautiful depiction of how our beloved pets age. (Cue ALL of the emotions.)
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An Idea Is Born
“My Great Dane, Elliott, is my biggest inspiration, and Seeing Double Edits wouldn’t exist without her,” says Helwege. “In less than a year, she went from a 12-pound puppy to a 125-pound full-grown dog.”
Before her first birthday, Helwege commissioned a project with two photos of Elliott, but said “it felt very photoshopped and fake.” That’s when Helwege, who studied art and has a background in graphic design and pet photography, decided to try to make her own.
It wasn’t long after that Helwege’s friends began to ask if she could make portraits of their dogs. Helwege, who calls her designs “edits,” started her company, Seeing Double Edits, less than a year after she made her first picture of Elliott, in 2018.
While she loves making images for others, editing her own pets—her Great Dane, Elliott, a Retriever mix, Allister, and and a horse, Augustus—is still one of Helwege’s favorite activities.
“I’ve done about 20 for mine at this point,” she says.
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The Pet Project
So, how does Helwege go about merging two monumental moments into one?
“My average edit time is somewhere between three and six hours,” she says, “and the short-haired breeds are usually a little bit easier to edit.”
Each finished image is unique and requires a singular approach based on the photos supplied by her clients—aspects such as shading, light, and perspective all must be artfully, and subtly blended into a cohesive and convincing final portrait.
Helwege often posts time lapse video and other sneak peak views of her creative process on Instagram, where her over 50 thousand followers can see her images come to life.
