animals Peaches & Simone

David, this is a sweet picture of two very cute dogs. The tongue hanging out is classic! I'm getting a very green/milky look in both dogs' eyes on my monitor -- do they have cataracts? Perhaps changing the angle of your lighting would put in more catch lights and less opaqueness in their eyes (I do see some catch lights in their eyes, but they appear to be straight-on instead of at 10 or 2).

Good timing on the shot, though. I've been photographing our four-legged crew and boy, it's a lot of moving around!

Hello. I love photography and I love animals. So this is best of two worlds. This photo seems simple at first but I know keeping animals in a good pose at a good background and getting their attention to make them looking to the lens interestingly is not a simple feat to archive. Their impressions are charming. Especially the one which is to the right. What a tongue. I would brush in some saturation on its tongue at photoshop. It would draw more attention and it would fit better with its pink hairgrip. This photo could easily take more contrast but low contrast and pastel tones fits in the soft and nice feeling I get from looking dogs. Only thing that shouldn't be pastel but more saturated is the dog's tongue in my opinion.

I agree with Kendra Wise. Their eyes are needed to be fixed either at a vet or photoshop or both. Otherwise this is a good photo. Well done. I like dogs but I like cats better. It would be nice if you could make photos of them as good as this one.

Kendra and Kaya,

Thank you both for your comments.

To Kendra: The dogs are sisters. They are both very old. The owner didn't specifically mention cataracts. The fact is, their eyes are green ! Regarding the catch lights, ( no, I did not remove the second catch light - in too big of a hurry to get this posted ) I light animals in the studio using parabolic light modifiers, getting the main light in as close as possible. I position the main light a lot lower than the traditional 10:00 / 2:00 spot so I make sure I can see the color in the eyes. The traditional 10:00 / 2:00 position for catchlights was strongly suggested before color film was invented.

To Kaya: Regarding adding saturation: On my calibrated monitor, the tongue is the correct color of that dog's tongue. Since I have been photographing professionally for over 40 years now, a lot of what I do remains unchanged even with the integration of Photoshop. To me, Photoshop is merely one of the tools I can use if it is needed, and believe me, I don't need it that often, since my exposure is nailed down so that it is repeatable time and time again. I had to do this when I was doing all my own printing. Many photographers used to say, " I never worry about exposure, let the lab take care of it." When you are the lab, it sure helps the bottom line to waste as little paper and chemistry as possible.

Once again, thank you both for your comments. I always listen to what others have to say, because I do not know it all and I am learning every day.

Warmest regards,

David R. Lewis