Anyone who has (or had) a pet will know that their animal friend has as much personality and character as a human. Now a powerful new photography series captures just that by exploring raw animal emotions on camera.

In the photo series called “Human Animal”, Belgium-based photographer Vincent Lagrange captures the striking similarities between humans and dogs, cats, birds and reptiles, like you've never seen before.

“I tried to photograph the animals as humans, depicting their emotion and human-like characteristics in a sombre way,” Lagrange told design website Yatzer, having been inspired by his pet cat, Dwiezel.

He says photographing the animals was no easy task because he had to constantly rearrange his props and lights to accommodate the animals moving around in the studio.

We profile nine of his most remarkable work below.

Incredible animal portraits capture the striking similarities between human and pet emotions