A Dog Named Blue

[twood]

Taking a little liberty with the old riddle - "What's black and white and red all around?" My dog "Blue". Caught him on an overcast day amongst the fallen red maple leaves in our backyard. Thought it provided a nice contrast in color.

[Shadowman]

Nice effort, did you crop the image?

[bnnrcn]

Blue is very nice IMO strong reds distract a bit.

[NorthernFocus]

Blue looks fairly cooperative with eye contact and sitting still. Using the maple leaves as a BG was a great idea. Blacks/whites are handles pretty well and good sharp focus on the eyes which is a must. The horizontal banding between red/brown in the BG is very distracting IMO. Solid OOF red would have been fine and nicely contrasting but as is I agree with Binnur's comment that it is distracting. Also a pet peeve of mine, the nose which is a big part of a dog's personality is OOF. A cute pup and every photo of them is worth the time and effort.

[GBO25]

Love the eyes. Like the red maple leaves. Although the horizontal bands don't bother me too much the colour/brightness of them is a bit close to the darker spots on Blue's ears and so the contrast is lost just a little in those areas but I'm nit picking. A nice shot.

[rpcrowe]

I love Blue's eyes! In fact, I like the entire image....

[IzzieK]

Blue is a pretty dog for sure but the reds in the shot reflected in his neck and chin...otherwise good composition.

[twood]

Thanks for all of your great suggestions. I have cropped a little tighter, desaturated the red a bit, and toned down the contrast of the steps to make Blue stand out a bit. The red reflected light under his chin is another project. Here is my edited version.

[bnnrcn]

IMO desaturated colors in the BG work fine. The original might look better with a desaturated BG too BTW you have green color on Blue's mouth and neck in the cropped version.

[planewood]

Either picture works for me! Very nicely done.