Minnie, my pedigree Siamese cat

This is my Siamese cat, Minnie. Do you think this is a serious

portrait?

It all depends on what you mean by serious.

The way you have used DOF is interesting...

The eyes of the cat appear slightly out of focus. Compare it to the area around his nose. Try using auto focus lock if you have this option or manually focusing.

I'm not sure which works better though..

The ears crisply popping off the red background could have been nice as well.

The cats eyes are nice

It's not a bad shot, but it's not what I would consider a 'portrait' in the classic sense of the word. Perhaps you might want to show more of the feline form. This kind of cat (Siamese or Chocolate Point?) has a very peculiar personality which sets them apart from almost all other cats... would be nice to catch that for

a portart.

The black stuff at the top of the frame is a bit distracting.

Your scan however is done very well. If only all people posting would post such clean scans!

(ha ha.. myself included!)

Keep it up - nice subject to work with.

cheers,

Luc

I'm a sucker for cats, especially Siamese. It's a nice picture, though I don't think you could really call this a "serious" portrait. A tighter crop might help (see example) but really I think the way this cat is laying is just too casual.