This picture was taken in my kitchen of my labradoodle Louis. To make the flash less bright I held a plastic bag in front of it so it would go through it and dull the brightness. I used photoshop and iphoto to edit this image. In iphoto I made the image slightly darker and changed the exposure and contrast slightly. In photoshop I changed the lighting more and used a filter similar to the one Jim Dratfield uses for some of his pet portraits.

To take this picture I placed my camera on the floor so it would angle up and so my hand didn’t shake it while I took the picture. I took one image with the full flash and it was washed out and the subject’s eyes were white, to fix this I held a partially see through plastic bag in front of the flash so it would be dulled. This caused a slight spotlight effect which I like because it draws attention to the subject’s eye and face and not his body, the floor or the wall. I spent a few minutes using iphoto and photoshop to improve the image because it was RAW when I first took it and downloaded it.

I chose to base my work off of Jim Dratfield because I love his photos and I love animals. In the picture my dog isn’t looking the camera because he is focused on my mom making him dinner. This picture relates to my life because it is of my my dog, in my kitchen and was created by me. Something that bothers me in this picture is the floor and how there’s a piece of paper on it, I do like the leading lines on the floor. To make this image stronger I might consider cropping it so the paper isn’t in it.