Animal Photography Photo Critique
Watching... Waiting
by Mark Pressman
Views: 1637
Category: Animal Photography
Nikon D5000
Lens: Standard: 30-50mm
Exposure time: 1/1600 ,
ISO: 1600
Flash: None
Tripod: No
Description: This photo arrived whilst I was taking shots of trees in a local wood and I think it see all >
This photo arrived whilst I was taking shots of trees in a local wood and I think it is one of my best photos of this type. It is in it's original state and has not been manipulated.
Photo Critique Summary
Subject of photo
10
Composition & Perspective
5
Focus
10
Use of camera, exposure & speed
10
Color & Lighting
5
Depth of field
9
General impression
5
Overall Rating
7.7
GuruShots Pro
Subject of photo:
10
I love the doggy in the photo and especially it's alert expression.
Composition & Perspective:
5
Lots of room for improvement here, in my opinion. When we photograph "down" at a subject it puts us at a perspective of being superior. If we were down on their level, the image can become a lot more compelling. The dog's head is also dead center in the frame and ideally the shot would have been composed a little differently. It would be better if there was more space to the right of the dog's head to give it a bit of space to look into.
Rarely do we want the focus point of the image, what we want a viewer to focus their eyes on, dead center in the frame.
Focus:
10
Focus looks to be perfect.
Use of camera, exposure & speed:
10
Everything about the exposure seems to be right.
Color & Lighting:
5
The white balance of this issue (warmth or coolness of the images) looks to be quite cool or blueish. I'd prefer this image with the color balance shifted to warm things up a bit.
Depth of field:
9
I like the way the depth-of-field separates the dog from the background.
General impression:
5
Technically, a great picture but in my opinion it could definitely have benefitted from a different composition, perspective and use of color balancing (either in the camera or through software).
How to improve your photo
1.
Get down to your subject's eye level. Images are almost always more compelling when we meet our subject at their own eye level.
2.
Try not to put the focal point of the image dead center in the image for a picture like this. The picture becomes more interesting when we take advantage of some of the compositional "rules" like the rule of thirds, golden rule or the golden spiral (often useful on portraits).
3.
The photo looks like it was shot in the shade and it fooled the camera's auto whitebalancing. You could have tried to manually set the camera's white balance to shade or you could have adjusted the white balance later in your photo editing software.
Get feedback on your photos from Pro Paul Burwell