My cat

[AnnikaT]

This was a spontaneous shoot because I was bored and thought my cat looked cute but I also think it's a nice picture so thought I'd put it up here and see what you think. What irritates me is the messy background!



Camera: Nikon Coolpix L22
Aperture: f/5.5
Focal Length: 6.7mm
ISO: 80
Exposure: 1/160
No Flash
Edited with Adobe Photoshop CS5

[RichardTaylor]

I agree, the background especially, and all that foreground is undesirable.

[karen_s]

You got way down low to give an interesting perspective and angle. LOVE that. Color looks nice without being overdone too, on the kitty anyway. The background is a bit rich though which makes it stand out even more. You might try cropping a little tighter to reduce how much of the color is viewable and to get rid of some of that foreground. You could experiment with layers in photoshop to desaturate the background just a bit. (That's kinda tricky to make it look real though, but worth a try maybe.)

One thing you could experiment with in the future is to back up and zoom in rather than get so close and shoot wide. Zooming can help blur the background just a bit. I think it's a little tougher to get blurry backgrounds with a point and shoot (compared to a DSLR) but give it a try and see what you camera can manage. I'm sure it has some nice capabilities to work with.

One last tip, learn to look at EVERYTHING in the viewfinder (or screen) before you shoot. We tend to look only at the subject when shooting but it's so helpful if you can train your eye to look at the entire scene as a whole.

Give kitty a little scratch behind the ears for me.

[AnnikaT]

Thanks both of you
Karen_s, that's a good tip about looking at everything, I think you're right, whenever I take a picture on my digital camera I only look at the subject. I have learnt to look at everything on my film camera because you only get a certain number of pictures in each roll, but with my digital camera I get lazy.