Hello. My name is Marcus and this website is about my collection of second hand photographs. This site has been here for some time now and been through several redesigns as I teach myself more about the internet. The latest redesign happened in June 2004 - I hope you like it.
I started collecting photographs back in 1998 when I found a photograph of a woman and a dog in the pages of a second hand book I'd bought from a second hand bookshop. I enjoyed the photograph and kept it as a bookmark when I was reading the book in question. Then a few months later I was in a charity shop and in a cardboard box of old photos I discovered another picture of a pretty woman with another dog. I immediately realised that this second picture could be the start of a collection - so when I went home I found the book and looked in it. Yes! The first picture was still there. The collection had begun. Well - I've been collecting them ever since. Whenever I find a picture of a woman (or girl) and a dog (or puppy!) I buy it and it becomes a part of my collection as well! So if you ever see a man looking through some old photos at a market or somewhere else and he's looking for pictures of women and dogs - the chances are, that's me!
Most of the earlier pictures in my galleries have been found by me personally in second hand shops and charity shops in the Birmingham area although nowadays I travel a bit further afield in pursuit of photos. I must, however, clear one thing up: I do not take photographs, I am not a photographer and I do not want to receive e-mails with other people's photographs. That is because that is not what my website is about. My collection is a collection of photos that I have found. I do enjoy owning these photographs and looking at them, but more importantly I enjoy finding them.
Since I discovered the internet I have very much enjoyed being able to share my hobby with other people. And the number of visitors continues to grow (Well it could hardly shrink could it? Ed) (Hang on, I am the Editor, I'm talking to myself! Marcus).
The first big boost to my visitors came when I was featured in the Daily Mirror (a tabloid newspaper here in the UK) as it's website of the day!As you can see for yourselves Amy Vickers from The Daily Mirror says the site is a fascinating picture display of women and their dogs. She has selected pictures 20 and 21 to illustrate her story.
I'm sorry to say that not everyone has been universally positive. This site was once voted Dork Of The Day by www.dorkoftheday.com!! In my dictionary it says that dork is a noun and that it is slang for a stupid or incompetent person. I will not lower myself to their level - but I will say that getting a website together and getting it "online" is hardly the action of an incompetent person! This kind of attitude used to annoy me but nowadays I don't let it.
My next big boost came from another British Newspaper. This time it was The Guardian who pointed out that this site is "not the least bit mucky" and also that it is "quite touching". They said that WomenAndDogsUK.co.uk is A Link Worth A Visit. Yeah! Here's what they said:
The next big boost came from the BBC no less (who's the dork now DorkOfTheDay.com?). My site was named Website Of The Day by Miles
Mendoza on BBC Radio 2's The Steve Wright Show. High praise indeed.
Miles wrote on the BBC's official site that it is
"...a refreshing and rather heart-warming antidote to the plethora of sites which exist only to make money, this online photo album contains only second-hand
pictures of women and dogs. It's eccentric but really rather lovely in its old-fashioned enthusiasm".
But quite the biggest boost to what we web-masters call my hit-rate came because of just two words. This page used to contain the words Dork (see above!) and Turnspit (it's a breed of dog) and, oddly enough, it was the only website in the world to contain those two words which means it is something called a Googlewhack! Even more amazingly, the man who discovered this fact about my site was a man called Dave Gorman who turned out to be a comedian. Dave and I struck up a correspondence and moths later I ended up meeting him. That meeting turned out to be quite significant and I ended up being a big part of his latest stage-show and even a book (both of which were called "Googlewhack Adventure). If you buy a copy, Chapter Two is all about me! Since Dave started doing that show and then again when the book was published I have had a much higher hitrate here at my website and most people have been very complimentary about what they find when they get here. Thanks Dave! (One complaint: at the end of Chapter 15 there is something that has led some people to think I would like them to send me pictures they have taken of a woman and a dog. That is not the case so please don't send those!)
So, that's how it all started and everything you need to know about my hobby. Now, I hope you enjoy the pictures. If you want to let me know what you think of my site, you can e-mail me at marcus@womenanddogsuk.co.uk. Or you can leave a comment in The guestbook.
There is some even more exciting news!! A company called KissMeKwik have contacted me to say that they would like to use my images to make some greetings cards! I gave it some thought, let me tell you, and I have decided that it is okay but that I don't think it's right for me to personally profit from these pictures as they are not pictures of me or my family and I have already profited just from finding and being able to own them. So any money that I would make will instead be donated to the RSPCA. I'll be sure to let you know if they go "into production"!
You can use the drop down menu to see the pictures: