Greetings and a Bull Terrier

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Wow, what a beautiful dog! I love bull terriers.

Anyway - for critique. That's a cool angle, and an interesting "industrial" feel of the image - works with a bull terrier (not so much with a maltese!)

The main problem I'm seeing is that the dog is broad-lit. If he had turned his face to the right, the open light on camera-right would have illuminated his face and bring out catch-lights in the far eye. If it were me, I probably would have come up a little bit so I'm eye-level to the dog, but that's a matter of preference, especially in a shot like this.

A few other things... I would guess this was shot at around f5.6 on a kit lens? Try backing off from the dog and using a longer lens with wider aperture - that will produce more bokeh in the background. Also, be a little more conscious of subject placement - for example, that girder (or whatever?) is cutting right through his head. If you moved a step to the right, his head would be in that white background area, clearing him from any distractions (because with a longer lens at a wider aperture those chairs would blur out, too.)

Really nice separation light on the right side of the dog. Overall really good texture and a good pose on the dog too.

I'm not sure if it's my monitor but overall the image looks a little bit low-contrast. Again, that might just be my screen.

By the way, greetings from Europe! (I'm in Rome.)

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Ah great! Yeah thanks for the tips, it was shot using a Canon 17-40 f4 lens, i kinda wanted the background to stay in, to give it the sort of 'rough' scene, but i can see both ways.

Cool about the light though, i always struggle with lighting, so its great to have some tips, im guessing the lack of a catchlight in her eyes dulls the image slightly?

Agree with the line cutting accross, its actually my washing line, i did think about cloaning it out, but left it in as i'd prefer to learn to get rid of it through composition rather than photoshop

Thanks for the tips though, very helpfull

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Easy trick about the lighting. Make a fist and hold it out in front of you (fingers facing in). Whichever direction lights up the knuckles is your direction to point the nose - this will short-light your subject and provide those catch-lights.

Oh now that you've said it... I can see how it's a clothesline. It looked like some architectural piece at first!

Good job.

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That is genious, what an awesome trick, i shall try that, next time we actually have some nice weather over here