Animals: Sage Sohier's photographs of people and their pets in the late 1970s and '80s

American photographer Sage Sohier grew up with four dogs and currently lives with three. Animals have always been important in her life; so, when she started photographing people in the late 1970s, she often included their companion animals.

Sohier said: "There is more spontaneity, less self-consciousness, and more chaos when humans and other animals coexist. Love is unconditional, grief is uncomplicated though deeply felt, and life is richer, more vivid, more comical."

A Harvard graduate, Sohier has received fellowships from the No Strings Foundation, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. And her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, to name a few.

Her series, entitled Animals, is now available in a new book published by Stanley/Barker. Join her at Le Bal on 7 November from 7:30pm where Sage Sohier will be in conversation with Mark Steinmetz, Tod Papageorge and Lou Stoppard.