DogtownArtworks

Cindy and Kirby Pringle have a simple goal: To bring joy to people’s lives through their words and art.

The Pringles specialize in unique, whimsical photographs with their “dog people” — dogs with humanlike bodies. Their work can be seen in three books, “The Butterfly That Would Not Fly,” (2012) “Happy Tails: The Call of Nature” (2008, sold out) and “Happy Tails: Earl and Pearl on the Farm” (2006, almost sold out).

The husband-and-wife team have worked together as professional photographers for more than 25 years and own Dogtown Artworks, located in Tuscola, Illinois, about 25 miles south of Champaign-Urbana. Cindy Pringle is an acclaimed photographer and past winner of the prestigious Ernst Haas Award as one of the nation’s top 100 photographers. Her husband, Kirby, is an award-winning journalist and photographer. Their work has been seen on everything from greeting cards to books to billboards — even an independent film.

“We’ve always taken photographs of our dogs and we decided more than 10 years ago to focus on ‘dog people,’” Cindy Pringle says. “We have a lot of fun coming up with the ideas and then watching them come to life.”

Cindy Pringle is a University of Illinois graduate and grew up in a small town in Central Illinois. Kirby Pringle, who was also raised in small-town Illinois, is a graduate of Eastern Illinois University and was a feature writer for The News-Gazette in Champaign-Urbana, Ill., for 23 years.

The two decided to specialize in creating “dog people” in 2002, using their own dogs as their models. The Pringles made photography, design and freelance writing their full-time occupation in 2008. They also are monarch butterfly educators and conservationists. As time allows, Kirby loves to restore vintage Native American photos from the 1880 to 1920 era.

“This all started because Cindy likes to make her own birthday cards. She took a photo of me standing in the woods in a bathrobe and then took a photo of our boxer wearing the same bathrobe. Cindy blended the images together and replaced my head with our boxer’s head,” Kirby Pringle says. “I actually looked better with a dog head, so we just kept it up. We couldn’t stop once we got going with the ‘dog people’ because they are so much fun to do and people really enjoy them. Creating 'dog people' is the essence of who we are.

“As a newspaper article on us recently put it: Dogtown Artworks puts the ‘wow’ into ‘bow-wow!’”

As photographers, they are represented by Corbis (search for Cynthia Pringle) and Next Day Art.