A Place to lay your head

[julie1015]

Someone has hired me to do my first ever photo job at a 75th surprise party this weekend. SO excited! I'm trying my hardest to practice, read, practice, read...and the only one allowing me to take pictures is my faithful sidekick Sheba. My husband and son are tired of the flash! Go figure!!

Any feedback is welcomed and needed!!

Nikon D100
28-70 lens
Nikon Flash SB-800 - in TTL

I'm trying so hard to learn the proper use of the flash. It seems to be by trial and error

[crockny]

Beautiful Sheba! She looks good - I may see an extra light in her right eye which you could clone out (can't tell with small image). The upper third is distracting -- too bright and crooked ... some other angle might have worked better --

[Tito87]

Good luck. Let us know how it goes, and we want to see pictures.

[julie1015]

Originally Posted by crockny

The upper third is distracting -- too bright and crooked ... some other angle might have worked better --

The upper third? I'm not sure what that means?

[crockny]

It's not just a photo of a dog, you have background to consider ... the upper third of your photo I find distracting as there is bright light on it as opposed to the rest of the photo -- the brightness also has a slope to it which is bothersome. The rest of the photo with the dog in the leaves is priceless - beautifully exposed and lovely ... good use of the leaves ...

[Jinks]

I'd be interested to know what f stop you used on that and whether it was necessary to use a flash as there seems to be plenty of ambient light. I appreciate you are practicing for your commission and I assume that will be indoors at night but in my very humble, and not necessarily correct, opinion flash should only be used when there's no alternative or to produce certain effects. What's the maximum aperture of your lens and could you set to that and work without the flash, possibly with a slightly raised ISO but not risking camera shake?

It's a great capture of the dog in a lovely setting although removing the light in his eye would improve it and, as has been mentioned, the background is a little too bright.

Good luck with the party, I hope it all goes well.

[ChrisM28]

Get the dog to lie in just the leaves and I'd love to see it, s/he is gorgeous