Ira in the afternoon light

Yes, it's cat picture, but is it a good cat picture? What I like:

the overall tones, the detail of the fur on the face, that I caught

some light in the eyes. What I wish was better: depth of field

perhaps (?) to shallow - the wiskers to the left are out of focus,

perhaps a little more or a little less of the body - don't know if

the truncated legs work.

 

These are my thoughts. Yours?

I find it somewhat striking. What if you cropped it tighter; eliminate the legs and the area beyond the hump in the rump?

I think you are asking for an honest opinion, so I hope you won't be offended when I write that it is not a good cat picture - at least to me. It could be with a crop and a little more detail in the highlights.

Not offended at all. I really am looking for helpful critiques for the stuff I post here. The shot is a little over exposed, but I don't mind the bright spots overall. I kept the wide crop originally because I liked the grey and black tones in the background and the suggested shape of the chair to the left, but these things don't necessarily come across as well in the small jpeg version. The above is a tighter crop per previous suggestions with some brightness adjustment. Better?

I like this last (cropped) version; the more I look at this picture, I seem to like the silver look to the high-lights. Punch up the silver look, tilt a bit counter clock-wise (so the eyes and ears are level.) Imagine this cropped version as a huge wall-sized print, square. Andy Warhol would have loved it!

The great thing about using window light, is you get beautiful skin tones, or in this case fur tones. Depth of field wise, it's such low light that unless you're on a tripod and working with a very still subject this is as good as it gets. I think the depth of field works here because, above all else, you always want the side of the face closest to the camera in focus.

I think the DOF is what makes the picture for me. A similar approach to many portraits of a more human nature around here. Good shot