Cat Portrait: Composition/Lighting/Detail

[lisakathleen1961]

Hi everyone.
Three questions about this pic:
1. Is the contrast too low between the subject and the background? I'm not that good at editing the contrast. Another option might be to crop the left 1/3 off the pic. Or leave as is. Thoughts?
2. The white specks on the cat *are* part of the cat. Are they distracting? I can edit them out if you think they detract from the photo. The specks on the face are dandruff (!). On the chest you can see a few stray white hairs.
3. I have another shot of the cat looking off in the distance over my left shoulder, but I kinda like that she's looking off camera. Wondering what you all think.

Thanks so much. Looking forward to constructive criticism. -- Lisa

Nikon D60
f/5.60
1/30
200mm

[Kate Howells]

Hi Lisa, lovely kitty, reminds me of mine who looks identical.
Just a couple of things :
There appears to be a red cast over the image, which is easy to fix in photoshop
I don't mind the stray hairs and dandruff as it is an impromptu shot... if it was in a studio and the cat had been groomed, I might get rid of them
Composition wise... I would have liked to see more of the cats ears, not crazy about the amputation. When you are composing an image, try and make room for your subject to look into. As it stands, your subject is looking straight out of the frame. You want to try and keep your viewers attention in the photo, at the moment, my eye goes straight to the cats face which is right on the edge of the image, and then it has nowhere else to go. There is a lot of dead space on the LH side of the image.
I hope this makes sense, and helps a little.

[gloson]

That's one cute, sweet, and handsome cat!

I like the bokeh and your DoF. I also agree with Kate that you need more room for where the eyes are looking at, also also more room for the ears to show, but not show completely. And I disagree with Kate that you should remove the red toning. I like it. It adds a warm feeling.

And yeah, I would remove the white hairs because they are a bit distracting :-) .

[lisakathleen1961]

Kate and gloson,

Thanks for your feedback... which shows how subjective this can be! You both agree that the cropped ears are a problem. I was resisting the urge to include the entire cat, but I can see now that it's a bit odd. As I said, I have a very similar shot with the cat looking to my left. The ears are intact and it gives the cat someplace to look. And I think the white flecks bug *me* so I'll edit those out.

Thanks again for the feedback. My first time posting something on here, but I'm trying to improve my work. -- Lisa