Dissecting the Photographs

Unless otherwise noted, the animal photo examples in this blog were taken 

from the Wake County Animal Shelter’s adoption gallery, visited on 5/22/13. They 

remain the property of the Wake County Animal Shelter. 

http://services.wakegov.com/adoption gallery/

Prince (85133)

While scrolling through the adoption list on the Wake County Animal Center's website, I came across numerous dogs that melted my heart. However this picture in particular of Prince stopped me in my tracks. His eyes and the positioning of his head i brilliant, really bringing to life the personality of this dog to the viewer. The photographer who took this photograph used a shallow depth of field but did not distort or blur the background very much. It appears that a little bit of dodge layering was used to lighten not only the reflection in his eyes but also the mounds or tops of his wrinkles. Although in class we discuss being at the dogs level to really capture them, I really like the slight height to this picture. It is not too high and it makes it feel like the viewer is looking down to the dog as if it was already their pet.

Pepper (88363)

This is a photograph of Pepper that I took and posted last week. I have now added the following: a dodge layer to the image, lightened his eye, lightened his ears, lightened the white of his fur ever so slightly (at 6%), balanced the colors, adjusted the exposure, adjusted the vignette slightly, and blurred the background focusing just on Pepper. Although this edited photograph that I have produced has not been submitted to the animal center yet, I am happy to announce that Pepper arrived last Thursday and has already been adopted! I cannot wait to have my photographs uploaded and see how much of an impact they make.