Waiting Paws
Inspired by Traer Scott, Mary Shannon Johnstone and her Landfill Dogs as well as project Invisibles by Andrés López, Waiting Paws is an animal photography project. We are Leila and Mandeep. Two photographers who would like to use their skills to help animals starting with shelter animals.
Shelters across Canada are full of adoptable animals waiting for a forever home. Some of these animals wait for weeks, months and sometimes years. Some have been abused, some abandoned by their families, some just unlucky.
Most animal shelters don’t have the time nor the resources to take photographs to help tell the stories of the animals they are trying to save. Their photographs are functional and useful and with the work needed to run a shelter and care for animals, it is understandable. That's why we want to help.
I am a self taught photographer. I picked up a camera a couple of years ago while heading on a trip to East Africa. But my animal activism days started two decades ago by getting involved in fostering animals from Toronto shelters.
And that was just the beginning of a series of efforts: running a series spay and neuter campaigns for street dogs in Mexico city with a team of veterinary volunteers, assisting the Donkey Sanctuary in Mexico, traveling with volunteer vets to treat dogs, cats and working animals in cities surrounding Mexico City and the municipal garbage dump. All this to say that I am familiar with the plight of abandoned, abused and neglected animals. But you get a chance to look into their eyes, you will fall in love. That’s how Robert, our dog made it from Puerto Escondido in Mexico to Canada. That’s how Mimi (our first cat) left the Toronto Humane Society cage for a life of being dotted on like a prince. He was old and blind but an amazing character!
And if you can gaze into the eyes of an animal through a photograph, hear their story and give them a second chance so they don’t end up discarded and euthanized, well… our time will have been well spent.
About Leila Boujnane
Leila Boujnane is the founder and CEO of TinEye. TinEye is an image search company using computer vision, pattern recognition, neural networks and machine learning to make images searchable.
Leila changed the course of image search by leading the team who built TinEye, the world's first reverse image search engine. Leila and her team are merging innovative computer vision approaches, and large scale computing to build image search solutions for millions of users, Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. Leila and TinEye are regularly featured in global media including: Canadian Business, CNET, Fast Company, Financial Post, Forbes, Le Monde, Popular Science, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Wired and more for creating what the media have called “a reverse image search engine on steroids”.
In addition to her role at TinEye, Leila is a supporter and an evangelist for Canada's startups and grass roots maker communities and an adviser to a number of start-ups and non-profit organizations.
In her spare time she organizes community conferences about technology, hacking and machine learning. She is also a self taught photographer and an animal advocate. She believes all animals are sentient beings and hopes to create an emotional connection between you and the animals she photographs. Leila is #plantpowered.
Born in Morocco, she now lives in Toronto (Canada) with Paul her partner, Zazie her dog and a number* of rescue cats.
*She refuses to disclose the number of cats.
About Mandeep Bal
Mandeep is a self-taught photographer based in Toronto and a wilderness junkie. He found his love for the wilderness and nature when he moved to Canada from India. His photography takes him everywhere but he is especially happy when in nature. You will find him trying to capture beauty all around him, be it in a portrait, a yoga session or a hike in the forest.
