Kirby Pringle

Cindy and Kirby Pringle have a simple goal: To bring joy to people’s lives through their words and art. As a recent newspaper feature on the couple put it: The Pringles "turn the bow into wow."

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

“We think this is our best yet,” Kirby says of the couple's newest effort, "The Butterfly That Would Not Fly." “We worked for four years on the book and we’re very happy with it. We think our fans will love it too.”

The husband-and-wife team have worked together as photographers for 22 years and own Dogtown Artworks, located in Tuscola, Illinois, a small town in Central Illinois. Cindy 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. The couple have a studio and gallery in Tuscola that features their dog art.

“We’ve always taken photographs of our dogs and we decided nine 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.

“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 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’re so much fun to do and people really enjoy them.

“Although our main creative focus is on ‘dog people,’ we’ve branched into other areas, especially dog portrait photography. We have developed our own unique ‘style' that people really enjoy," he adds.

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