Not so "Golden" Retriever

[ryan11]

Hi, my name's Ryan, I'm relatively new to the world of digital photography. I'm already finding this site extremely helpful, and I'm hoping to get some tips on how to improve. This is my first post, and I'm pretty good at handling criticism so please, let me know what you think.



This is a photo of my dog, Lexie, laying in my backyard. I've played around a bit with the black and white levels in the photo. And I have a couple of questions, mainly about the composition:
Should more/less of my dog's body be in the picture?
Is the grass too distracting?
Is there too much space on the left side?
Is the depth of field too shallow?

Nikon D5000
Shutter Speed: 1/60
Aperture: f/5.6
Focal Length: 105 mm
ISO Speed: 400

[karen_s]

Welcome to the wonderful and addicting world of photography. Your will have some fun with that camera with such a great looking dog. (My boys are my favorite subjects.)

Anyway, as far as your questions, here is my two cents worth (and that's about as much as I can get for my advice :-) :

"Should more/less of my dog's body be in the picture?"

Looks fine to me. When I take photographs of my dogs, I tend to look more at where I cut body parts in the composition. I try not to cut off paws, cut at the joints, chop off tips of ears, things like that. Not that that can't work, but it's good to have them in the shot as you can always crop them later if you are going for a different effect.

"Is the grass too distracting?"

To my eye, yes. I think if there were less of it, that would help. It's also very sharp which makes my eye want to look at it longer. Fortunately your dog is lighter and that attracts the eye back to the subject.

"Is there too much space on the left side?"

To my eye, yes. But not all that much. If it were my photo, I would lop off the left side halfway between the tip of the nose and the left edge. I would also crop some off the top and bottom. I think a tighter crop would lessen the distraction of the grass a bit.

Is the depth of field too shallow?

Depends on what you are going for. I tend to like shallow depth of field but sometimes you want it deeper so I would just experiment with it to find what you like. I prefer the shallower for portraits (like head shots) and sometimes go for the deeper DOF for action.

One other thing you can do to help your dog photography is to try shooting from their eye level (or even lower). It can really make a big difference.

Sorry to ramble but my photographic passion is shooting dogs and I just get too excited sometimes.

Hope that helps.

[ryan11]

Thanks for your advice, I'll be sure to keep everything in mind when I take more pictures of my dog. I tried the tighter crop, and I like how the grass isn't as distracting. I'm definitely going experiment shooting from their eye level next time I get a chance.
Thanks again.