Portrait of my dog.

[arterture]

Any thoughts? Once again I will let it be known that I am an art student and I had taken a photography class last semester. In other words I am a beginner.

 

[Digital Matt]

Nice shallow depth of field, and you caught a good moment, but I think the composition is too centered for that distance I think. It's not a full length portrait, but not a head shot really (not sure if you can even use those terms to describe animal portraiture ) I think if the dogs head were a bit more to the right, with his ear close to the edge of the frame, and possibly down a bit lower (I dunno what was in the background) you'd have a more interesting comp.

Sometimes for these candid shots, the background is not ideal. It's nice to have a large piece of foam core that you carefully place behind the subject to isolate it.

 

[arterture]

Nice shallow depth of field, and you caught a good moment, but I think the composition is too centered for that distance I think. It's not a full length portrait, but not a head shot really (not sure if you can even use those terms to describe animal portraiture ) I think if the dogs head were a bit more to the right, with his ear close to the edge of the frame, and possibly down a bit lower (I dunno what was in the background) you'd have a more interesting comp.

Sometimes for these candid shots, the background is not ideal. It's nice to have a large piece of foam core that you carefully place behind the subject to isolate it.

Thanks for the composition tips. In the dark room I had actually enlarged the photo so the ear was closer to the right edge. However this particular image was taken from a scan of the negative and I wanted to get the edges of the negative in there, which I thought gave it more closure, or am I wrong?

 

[Rob]

Personally I'd shift the view left a bit to include the paws and stick a little bit of rotational angle on the shot to distract from the "target" composition. Good DOF though and I agree wholeheartedly with DM's comments.

Rob