Photographer Uses Technical Wizardry to Help Rescue Animals Find Homes

Photo by: Sarolta Bán
March, 2014

Self-taught Hungarian photographer Sarolta Bán is best known for her surreal landscapes which have been displayed in galleries across Europe. She creates dreamlike scenes, often populated by magical beasts, with digital manipulation and Photoshop, sometimes layering as many as a 100 individual images. Now she's using her skills to help real-life abandoned animals around the world find homes. She invited her more than 100 thousand Facebook fans to submit photos of rescue pets, and she is transforming them into evocative, majestic portraits. She's received entries from as far away as India, and a number of shelters in the United States have submitted photos. "Abandoned dogs sadly have really few chances to appear on a photo that will help them get out of the shelter. A photo that stands out from the crowd, and 'speaks' to a person," she writes on the project page. "I would really like to help sheltered animals, and for sure a good picture can be worth a thousand words." The project ends in mid-April, and anyone who adopts one of dogs or cats will receive a signed portrait of their new pet. --Sarah B. Weir, Yahoo Shine