B&W Havanese. C&C please?

[Emmy7]

I've been working on taking pictures of dogs. I finally got my camera I focus on the eyes! C&C?






Thanks!

 

[JoshuaSimPhotography]

It's a bit overexposed on the bottom and top of its head. I really love the lighting for the eyes and nose though!

 

[PinkDoor]

I have a chocolate and white Havanese . . . and I have to say, this disappoints a little. Does not show his/her cute stature, and does not show their spunky personality.

 

[Emmy7]

To be honest, I wish I could've captured a spunky personality, but she doesn't have one. She just sleeps all day. I think i was lucky she even got off the couch. Thank you both for the critique!

 

[paigew]

To be honest, I wish I could've captured a spunky personality, but she doesn't have one. She just sleeps all day. I think i was lucky she even got off the couch. Thank you both for the critique!

hahaha this made me giggle

I think your shadows are too dark and your highlights too bright. Also not a fan of the up close composition.

 

[amolitor]

The contrast might be a bit much as some have pointed out, but ultimately that's just a choice about the "look" of the thing, and I don't mind one way or the other.

A bigger problem is that the eyes appear to be almost featureless shiny spheres. If you opened up the shadows a bit the eyes would look more like eyes, and less like creepy black orbs of evil

Looks like you shot the wee beastie looking directly at the window behind you? Either that or a large softbox directly behind you! Either way, there's an enormous white highlight in the eyes that's obscuring a good deal of the eye-ness as well. Frankly not sure what on earth Joshua's talking about, since this is probably the biggest single flaw. I'd try a lighting a bit more from the side -- rotate the dog 45 degrees, and retain your position relative to the dog! Get a bit more ambient light to tone the window light down (relative to the total light, that is -- you're not dimming the window, you're brightening everything else, but shhhhh, don't tell your camera that!) and the eyes should open up more.

You could probably get the eyes a little more visible with different post processing as well, but it sounds like you might be re-shooting the dog again as well.

 

[gsgary]

Don't crop it soo tight next time and maybe a bit of fill flash, i like to shoot my dog under studio lighting
http://gsgary.smugmug.com/Family/Archie-and-Jane/i-BB739cf/0/L/IMG3983-1b-w-L.jpg

 

[PinkDoor]

I gave it a go with my havanese model: