Some experimental shots with the family dog

[dsiglin]

Hank is my 2 year old boxer / chocolate lab mix. He's not overly bright, bless his heart, but he love everything and everyone which is a counterbalance to the cat's mood swings. Anyways, Hank volunteered to model for me yesterday. I wanted to try my hand at using natural light and flare in portraits to create images with smooth dreamy tonal shifts and nice highlights. I edited the photos with some burning and dodging to up the contrast a bit. Here are three photos with the original then the edited version. I realize some people might love or hate the look I was trying to achieve but I'd like to hear your thoughts nonetheless. I'm interested in learning more about portrait work, trying to convince the wife to let me practice on her but for now the dog is my best bet.

There were shot with manual Canon 50mm 1.4 FD and a Nex 5n. The originals are straight from the camera jpgs. I forgot I had disabled RAW mode. :/

 

[swashburn421]

I personally really like the 4th picture here. I would lighten it a little to see the outline of his ear, but that is my only comment. I am partial to the darksided pictures, i just think they look so much better! Great job!

 

[dsiglin]

Yes after getting home and looking at these on my calibrated monitor I realized they were far far to dark. I've now made a personal rule that I will never do any kind of photo editing except for on my nice calibrated monitor. The edited ones were far to dark. I've re-edited them and actually just got on here to post them when I saw someone had responded! Thanks for your response and I think you will like the greater detail in these newly edited ones. They are much lighter than the original edits, but still darker and more contrast from the original files. I generally go for a lighter feel but Hank with his dark rich coat lends himself to this darker editing style, I think.