Our Elders’ Campfire Stories – A Halloween theme photoshoot

Year 13. The last one.

I look back today and it’s hard to believe we did it. Despite creative burnout, despite weather, budget, time or the state of the world, we consistently showed up year after year to bring this project to life for 13 years.
To have been able to do this for the 13 years we got to spend with Willow, our greatest muse, our goodest girl who inspired this project. To come together to create a little bit of Halloween magic, even when it’s been extra hard. It’s special to me beyond words.

This year? It hits different. This one idea has been in my notebook for a long time, and I had an inkling it could possibly be the last one in the series. Because I knew that when Willow wrote her last earthly chapter and rejoined the stars, this series would have its last chapter too.

And so it is, that this project comes to its grand finale today.

Our beloved lady, our Willow the Wild, peacefully rejoined the stars on October 16th. I am writing a formal tribute to her, but as you can imagine, all I can focus on right now is remembering how to take a deep breath in a home that no longer holds her earthly shape I love and miss so dearly. Her life and legacy deserves the best tribute I can give her, to write her story faithfully, vividly, full of color and music.

Willow left a trail of stardust in her wake, and this 13-year project is one of my favorite legacies of hers. We got to love and work with the greatest dog. No amount of time would ever be enough for those of us who have known such love. And yet, I am grateful for each one of those 13 and the more I think about it, the more special–and very Willow–it is that we got to do this as the final piece, and that we are finishing the series with 13 total pieces. For a Halloween project, nothing could have been better than that number.

This idea was always going to happen… it just needed to be the right time.

If you remember, last year’s Amas Veritas came together fairly quickly when I realized that what I originally wanted to do was not going to work out timing-wise. I’m glad it didn’t, because things aligned in the way they were meant to. Last year’s theme ended up being very special to us, not just because of the theme and the spell cast (and fulfilled). We were able to include our beloved Artemis kitty in that one, before he made his own journey to the stars later that November. Since then, Willow’s spell gave way to a little puppy brother named Kowi that arrived in January. Tonight, he makes his debut in our story.

Puppies grow fast and Kowi was apparently sleeping in Miracle Gro because in 2 months, we outgrew 3 crate sizes. If we wanted to be faithful to my original concept, we would need to work quickly and shoot our Halloween project in March.

Puppies, Campfire Stories and the Elder Dog

This concept was originally based on spooky campfire stories and as such it would have been cute. But time ensured that the idea evolved past that into something deeper, more meaningful. These are not just stories, they are lessons. They are passed down from our elders to our young ones. These elder dogs have so much to teach young puppies and if there is one thing Willow did throughout her life it was this. She was such an incredible teacher for other dogs, her social skills so rare and beautiful. Wise beyond her years, Willow probably helped school over 100 puppies, taught adolescent dogs proper manners and served as a calm and steadfast friend for dogs who had a hard time making friends at all. She was a true Elder, in the most respectful form of the word. Her legacy is sprinkled across so many. Her story continues to be carried by them.

Her last gift to Bill and me was helping raise one more puppy, the most important one: Kowi, her Legacy.

Heart-squeezy facts about Kowi

Chihowa Kowi Logan Potter was born on October 14th, 2024–it was Indigenous People’s Day, and as a Native American Indian Dog, that could not be more kismet. We had been chatting with our friend Becci, guardian of these Medicine Dogs, about possibly adding one of her puppies to our family. Becci knew Willow in all the ways that mattered, and in hours of conversations and texts, she knew the qualities that would make a great match for our family. She named this litter of puppies the Legacy Litter. Are you crying yet?
As is tradition, Becci gives each puppy a name blessed in ceremony and a few weeks later, carefully matches each puppy with their new family. Each puppy’s name speaks to the Medicine they will bring their families and speaks to their greater purpose. She gave our puppy the name Chihowa Kowi (pronounced Koh-Wee), meaning Creator’s Forest in her Native Choctaw. A Forest was coming home to a Willow.
Following our tradition, we loved and kept Kowi’s name and gifted him with one of our own: Logan, in honor of our favorite X-Men, Wolverine, and Potter, because he has the cutest spectacle markings, and we instantly knew this boy? He has some serious magic in him.

If you’d like to learn more about Native American Indian Dogs, or Becci’s Medicine Dogs, please make sure you visit their website at Corn Moon Medicine Dogs.

The Perfect Place for our Campfire

From the get go, there could only be one place, Willow’s favorite and practically her second home: her auntie Charlie’s field. The great benefit to this, other than the joy of having Charlie involved, was the safety it provided for all our models.

We would have a total of 8 dogs (the number for infinity!) working that night, 3 of them puppies. Each dog would have their own time slot to model once we got the campfire set built. We did it this way to make it easier for the puppies to focus and hold their “stay” on their tree stump. Aside from the pups, we had to have a few favorite adult dogs, one of them being Charlie’s little guy and Willow’s little bestie, Ferdinand.

All in all, we had Pepper the Black Labrador puppy (we had to have a black Labby, of course), Hank the pitty puppy tank, Rizzo the nerdy herdy pocket rocket, Lark the Golden with the hear of gold, Mila the most wonderful Smooth Collie girl and the other Grand Lady of the pack, Ferdinand the Fruit Bat aka Willow’s Ride or Die, Kowi the Toasty Ghostie marshmallow fluff puppy man and of course, the Grand Elder Lady herself, our Willow the Wild.

Willow was so happy that day. The weather was great, the skies were crisp and clear and the spring forward days allowed us more light to work with well into the evening.
Ms Wild knew this was about her. She always does. As Bill was arranging the tree stumps around the fire pit, she would go and place her front paws in each one. “I’m ready!” she’d say. “Not yet baby girl!” we’d laugh.

Release the Puppies!

Once the camera was locked in place, we started photographing each dog and it went pretty quickly from there. We began with Willow, Ferdinand and Pepper to make the most out of the remaining daylight to light their dark coats. Hank, Kowi, Lark, Mila and Rizzo would come next.

For Willow’s pose, we wanted her to be the biggest and tallest in the group, so we placed her on raised platforms hidden behind a larger tree stump. We tried a few different static poses, but then decided to cue her to bark and THAT was just the ticket. Oh, she was so happy to bark. We got several great poses that make her look like she’s howling. Perfect to tell a story by campfire light.

Each dog would be gazing at either the campfire, at Willow or at the magical embers and smoke taking shape above the fire.

Our fire would be mocked up by artificial light while the dogs worked and would only be truly lit ablaze at the end of the night. This way, we were able to capture true campfire light for the scene–that and we would get to close the day with s’mores and (for some of us) a little bit of whiskey to celebrate. We were already teary-eyed because of the weight of this theme, in particular for Charlie and me. It was Willow that first brought Charlie and I together 13 years ago. It was Charlie who enlisted Willow’s skills and help through hundreds of puppy classes, behavior consults and charm sessions. It is Charlie who knows, about as intimately as I do, what Willow’s meaning and legacy is. How freaking rare and amazing she is. How heartbreakingly difficult it is to not have her here (physically) anymore and how despite that, her magic is eternal. Bittersweet as it was, this year was the right time for this idea to take flight. Not only that, it had to be here, with Charlie.

Even in the age of Artificial Intelligence, we go old-school

Bill went about stitching together around 12 different photographs into one composite. We began this project long before AI was seemingly taking over, and it’s been incredibly important to us to stay true to that. Between good old Photoshop retouching skills, specialized brushes, a couple of stock photos for embers and sparks and lots and lots of painting with layers and blend modes, our campfire story scene came to life thus. We even re-purposed the moon we photographed back in Year 6 as a heartfelt easter egg, a nod to the image we created with Willow’s Golden Bestie, Poppy. Who she is now lighting up the night sky with… and sometimes we picture them jumping on clouds to make it rain on us, since they knew how much we loved to take them on rainy day hikes together.

Another Easter egg is the bird shaped by the embers from Willow’s sacred fire; it is a raven, representing Corbin. We believe loved ones we miss come back to us as birds. They each choose a bird and it is unmistakable, and immensely comforting. At the time of writing this, we are still waiting for Willow to reveal which bird she chose. I just asked her for three things: make it obvious, make it loud and make it someone I can see often.

So, without further ado…

Willow the Elder’s Campfire Stories

I hope you’ll gather around the fire, one last time on this Halloween night, 
Open your ears, open your hearts, listening for that howl with all of your might, 
It is a story told, a lesson passed down, and my–what a beautiful sight, 
This is the tale of great ancestors, beloved friends whose light shines bright.

When great souls we love journey on from Earth into starlight,
worry not for they are not gone, they return shaped like a bird in flight.
Look up and you’ll see them, you’ll feel them abide,
They never left. You carry them inside.

A massive, huge Thank You to our #1 supporter of this silly project (and Willow aunties) Charlie and Jen for staying up late on a school night, braving the feels and the cold to help us whip up some magic, for helping us give this series its grand finale. To all our amazing puppies and dog models, especially to Katie and her three amazing dogs we can always count on to deliver and then some. To Bill, for holding my hand through thick and thin and all of the feelings, for never letting Halloween go by without us creating something magical, shouldering most of the tech side of things, and having so much fun prop foraging for tree stumps all over Petaluma’s country roads. Thank you to our favorite s’mores puppy, our good boy in training, Kowi my love; for taking on this role, your very first photoshoot, a month into knowing you, working in a field full of incredible distractions and yet–you nailed it buddy. Your sister is so proud of you, I can feel it.
And to our one and only, greatest dog star, the magical being herself, our Willow the Wild, for being the catalyst of this creative project and the driving force behind it for the past 13 years. Thank you for never letting burnout make ashes out of me. Thank you for teaching me that fire is sacred because it makes Phoenixes out of us. Thank you for teaching Kowi in one year what you learned from Corbin in eight years, for imbuing him with your magic and stardust. Thank you for loving me so fiercely and being by my side in every universe, in every lifetime. I love you fiercely and forever, my love.

And of course to you, who read this far. To you, who say you look forward to this every year and come back, even during times like these, thank you, because while we do this for Willow and ourselves, we came back every year to do it for you, too.

Happy Halloween, friends!

Want to see previous years of our Halloween theme photoshoots?
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Year 11
Year 12

This photograph is ©The Labs & Co. All rights reserved. Thank you for sharing our work! But please be kind and give credit.