The staged and cinematic images in Martin Usborne‘s new book, The Silence of Dogs in Cars, soon to be published by Kehrer Verlag, portray dogs mutely waiting for their owners. Usborne, an editorial and fine-art photographer based in London, tells PDN that the project is, “sort of a metaphor for how we silence animals in our lives,” including, he says, our own animal natures. As the publisher says, “Usborne wants to show that there is beauty in the darkest spaces within us.”

The subjects in the photos — all of which Usborne set up and lit– were dogs he met through friends or while walking his miniature schnauzer. To learn more about what inspired this deeply personal project, how Usborne conceived and created the images, how he published the book, and where his love of animals has taken him next, see PDN‘s article, “Animal Studies: Seeing Ourselves in the Faces of Dogs” in PDN‘s October issue and on PDNOnline.com.