My Lil Chihuahua

[TommieRetro]

A "Lazy Sunday Morning" with my dog Milton. I'm fairly new so please be gentle.

f-stop: f/4.3
Exposure time: 1/2sec
ISO speed: ISO-800
Aperture: 4.2
No Flash
Kodak Z915

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by TommieRetro

A "Lazy Sunday Morning" with my dog Milton. I'm fairly new so please be gentle.

f-stop: f/4.3
Exposure time: 1/2sec
ISO speed: ISO-800
Aperture: 4.2
No Flash
Kodak Z915

Awwww... Milton in SUCH a good dog.... !! Good Boy!!!!

Love the B&W in this image and the catch lights in Milton's eyes make it for me along with the nice dynamic range and arrangement of midtones.

What I don't like, to be perfectly frank, is the prominence of your signature at the top of the image. I'm seeing that a lot on the forum. Some people claim they've been ripped off and are merely overcompensating. I don't know. I would not be distracted by a subtle, smaller, grey-tone version of your selection for this image, tucked into a corner.

Imagine if Starry Night, for example, had been signed in bright red paint across 1/3 of the starry sky, "YO! Vinny Van Gogh, BABY!!!"
Imagine that for a moment.

But this reply isn't about that; It's about Milton and those nice catchlights in his eyes.... Milton is SUCH a good dog !!

[TommieRetro]

Thank you for the kind post. He is a very good boy all the time, even when I bug him with pics LOL. I do get what you're saying about the sig though. This has to be my favorite shot of my Lil Man. Thanks again.

[chicagojohn]

Originally Posted by TommieRetro

Thank you for the kind post. He is a very good boy all the time, even when I bug him with pics LOL. I do get what you're saying about the sig though. This has to be my favorite shot of my Lil Man. Thanks again.

This is a very nice composition, Tommie. For all of us dog lovers, well, we instantly love your dog Milton, and you deserve to be particularly proud of this photograph of him based upon the technical merits, in my opinion, for the reasons I cited above.

All I'm trying to say, and this isn't specific to your post, but to many others I've seen as well, if the likes of a Vincent Van Gogh can be humble in his signature, then how much moreso should we be? Especially when that signature invades the viewers' appreciation of image we are trying to express to them?

This is a line each of us must draw for ourselves; there is no absolute right or wrong; it's a judgement call, and for some, perhaps even a business decision.

But for some of the very greatest images I've seen in my lifetime, one has to look long and hard to find the name of the creator, and in others, it is absent entirely, as was the case recently for an image of two ducks, among a handful of the most beautiful images I've seen in my 63 years, yet unsigned. See it for yourself on this forum, if you can find it.