First Post: My girlfriend's dog

This is my first post on this forum, and I was looking for some brutal CC. It seems everywhere I go people are so nancy-ish about critiquing photos. Tear it apart please.

I would love to see a crop from the bottom, letting more of the border collie show up! A tad bit of levels in light will bring him forward instead of blending in the Bg.but really.that way it is, you caught the dog at his best!

Welcome to POTN

Welcome

I'm no expert, but you asked for it ......good setup with dog and tree and nice detail in the stump. Overall it looks a bit dark to me and I think the dog blends in too much with the trees in the background. Also, I think you could stand to crop out some of the bottom.

A good start in my opinion!

Welcome to POTN! The image is crisp, clean and nice, albeit somewhat contrasty.

However, I think the dog blends into the background a little too much. The right side of the dog's head almost blends into the background trees. It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

I would disagree with cropping the bottom, tho. By showing the bottom, the stump is "grounded." It's an old oil painting tip as I understand it. Cropping up would produce a partial stump, floating with no "grounding" into the scene.

Keep shooting, keep posting.

I disagree about the cropping of the stump.only because there is enough of the height left behind the dog to create a "grounding", plus there are trees in behind him showing his setting?

I did it, and it doesn't look like its floating.in this instance anyways

CannedHeat wrote in post #6558898
Welcome to POTN! The image is crisp, clean and nice, albeit somewhat contrasty.

However, I think the dog blends into the background a little too much. The right side of the dog's head almost blends into the background trees. It's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

I would disagree with cropping the bottom, tho. By showing the bottom, the stump is "grounded." It's an old oil painting tip as I understand it. Cropping up would produce a partial stump, floating with no "grounding" into the scene.

Keep shooting, keep posting.

I didn't think of it that way, but it makes perfect sense.

First impression, sharp, good boken, really isolates and accentuates the subject(s). The dog has a great expression and the texture of the bark is very nice.

But... what is really the subject though? The dog or the tree stump? My eyes keeps focusing downward away from the dog towards the base. How about a tighter crop of the dog? I understand the "grounding" theory but how trying just a crop of the left upper 1/4 of the picture isolating the dog.

The legs are too short and his/her tongue is hanging out. Other than that the photo is pretty good, maybe a minor levels adjustment.

Welcome to the Forum.

In General, Black-and-Whites do not impress me, but this is a definite keeper. I like it very much.

You should probably crop some of the bottom as others have suggested. This would place the dog's eyes in the ROT Sweet spot rather than having it's chest registering in the Sweet spot. But its a nice photo even without the new crop.

The exposure seems somewhat dark to me, but probably still acceptable. The detail and focus is righteous. Cropped or uncropped, its a great capture.

Thanks guys. The bokeh is actually fake; it's a gaussian blur effect after separating the stump and the dog (SHE is an Australian Shepherd btw ).

I've had others tell me that I should crop out the bottom. I'm toying with the idea at the moment, and I'll post another photo after I decide to crop it or not, and when I play with levels a bit as some people suggested. This is really the first shot I've ever considered printing, but it still needs some work.

I'm surprised no one mentioned where this photo came from when looking at the exif :P.

JuiceBox wrote in post #6559587
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I'm surprised no one mentioned where this photo came from when looking at the exif :P.

Not all of us are 'Pixel Peepers'

Well, first and foremost I have to agree with the general consensus here about the crop...you really need to decide "what" this photo is about. If it's about the tree stump, then the dog shouldn't be in the shot at all but if it's about the dog then the framing/crop should be much tighter.

Secondly while I will admit that I don't care for b&w to begin with, I really don't like it here. I think some color would have provided much more seperation of the dog from the background. I could be wrong here, but I would be willing to guess the dog's coat is pretty much black and white, but the tree stump is probably brown(ish)...the color would be the separating factor. By going with b&w here you loose that and the dog starts to get lost in the background. In addition...and this is purely a personal opinion here, but that dog has such a beautiful face that in my opinion it's really a shame he's not actually looking at the camera!

I could be wrong here, but I get the impression with this shot that you tried to do too much...you were trying to be what I refer to as "forcefully creative". In other words, you tried to force the shot instead of just letting it happen. What I see here is someone saw this big ol' stump out in the woods and decided to have the owner make the dog "sit" on the stump while the photographer took a couple of shots. One of the very first things I ALWAYS avoid when doing dog shots is having the owner make the dog sit...it always looks forced and unnatural to begin with.

This is, as always, just my opinion but with most critter shots in general "simple" usually works best. Especially with dog shots it's been my experience that the two things that work best are either the action shots showing the dog doing something (like running, playing, working, catching a Frisbee in mid air, etc.,) or just the plain ol' portrait style close ups of the face. In either case I would go with a very minimal background. With this dogs face, that's what I would have done here...nice tight close up of the face. Maybe make funny noises to get those ears up and get him looking at ya. Yea, the stump in sort of interesting and all, but with that dogs beautiful face, you really don't need anything else in the shot.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

That's exactly the type of response I was looking for. Thank you very much.

Nice technical work but my first impression is where does the dog end and the stump begin - the dog's head blends into the stump. It's a lovely animal, try for some motion blur shots with him running and jumping as he seems ready to do at any minute.

SwingBopper wrote in post #6562722
Nice technical work but my first impression is where does the dog end and the stump begin - the dog's head blends into the stump. It's a lovely animal, try for some motion blur shots with him running and jumping as he seems ready to do at any minute.

I've wanted to do that for quite some time; sadly, I don't have any ND filters yet . Being a poor college student really limits this hobby.