You’re in for a treat with Ella Pavlides’ photo series on Mexico City’s unsung heroes – dog walkers

Ella practiced awareness of being in a foreign country, she strayed away from simple voyeurism and moved towards a genuine love for this tucked away culture. As a photographer, she found an obligation towards capturing beauty in overlooked moments. “My favourite photo is the man standing in the throng of dogs, shot from below on a wide angle lens, he looks proud and his dogs each have their own character, you get a sense of the tangled chaos of walking that many dogs at once,” says Ella. You can really see a tenderness between man’s best friend and man himself, a pure connection that is caught with purpose in Ella’s photographs. “I saw that they were all big softies at heart. Seeing their hearts revealed was special.”

Like many creatives, Ella feels concern over the rise of artificial intelligence in art and finds her duty as a photographer to be important. Capturing what is true, and not generated from the excesses of existing images, is paramount, especially when it comes to documenting the immediate communities and niché interests of other cultures. In her own work, she creates dream-like qualities that she feels could be misinterpreted as AI, but in these photographs, the reality of the dog walkers and their love for our canine friends is unmistakable. “I really enjoyed stepping out of my comfort zone and shooting a strictly documentary portrait series,” says Ella. Don’t say it around the dogs, but this series is a real T-R-E-A-T.