I have been lurking forever and finally decided to participate...I own and show a Rottweiler and love shooting pics of everyone elses dogs as well as mine. This is a picture of one of my breeders dogs...any and all feedback welcome...
I am a dog lover. Nice to see some dog images.
Pose is cute. Catchlights would improve.
DOF is well-chosen.
Framing is good.
White/bright area far right is extremely distracting, and my eyes keep jumping over there. You could tone it done in PS, clone it out, or look for another opportunity.
Really glad you chose to participate and finally post. This is a cool image. I love it when an image is technically competent as well as fun. Being a dog person I feel compelled to comment as well.
Nice thing about our medium is that we can agree to disagree. Accordingly I agree with some of the comments that have been made and disagree with some.
First I think there are some catchlights in his eyes. Are they great? No. But this is not a posed pet portrait and so to accidentally get any catchlights is a plus. It isn't like you used strobes. But they definitely draw my eyes to his.
Tremendous use of depth of field in this. I like the background. My only complaint with the image is what Scott mentioned. The bright whatever in the far right is distracting. I like your composition with the big guy in the left part of the frame looking towards the open space (camera right). But I, unfortunately, am also drawn that way.
I disagree with the comments about the colors. I find the colors in your image very pleasing. I really like the browns (and greens) balancing the browns in your dog's coat.
I dislike Kaden's processing treatment of this. But I really like his cropping. He took out the bright on the right but yet left the image very well balanced with him looking to the open space. The blokeh of the leaves above his head is great. Just for me, if you took his cropping and your color treatment you definitely have something to hang on your wall.
