New to photography...honest critique please

[apollovet]

This pictures was taken in my backyard. I was just experimenting with my new camera and got this shot and thouhgt it looked really nice. Not sure how I feel about the tilting of the background but thinks it's kind of cool. With I would have used a larger aperture to blur the background though. Tell me what you think. Thanks

[karen_s]

First, welcome to DPS. It's a great place to learn.

Second, Exif data is really helpful when asking for critique. I grabbed the basics for you from Flickr in case you aren't too familiar with it ...

1/125
f/14
20mm
200 ISO
No flash

Anyway, I am not a fan of the tilt but it does kinda work here. I like that you got way down low at your dogs eye level. You also got some great warm light from the sky that's really giving you some nice color. His (her?) eye is beautiful yellow with a tiny catch light and I definitely like that.

As to the background, it doesn't really ruin the shot for me 'cause it is kind of his environment. Yes, it's distracting but not terribly so. My biggest negative with the shot would be the cutting off of the paws, I would love to see them. I don't know why but the the cutting off of appendages is often uncomfortable to a viewer (although it seems rather acceptable in sports photography) so keep an eye on that in the future. To get a blurry background, the wider aperture might help but probably not a lot at 20mm. I shoot with much longer focal lengths if I'm trying to get some nice bokeh.

Overall I think it pretty nice. Just keep playing with that new camera and enjoy.

Third, I LOVE Goldens and you have a sweet looking one