Shutterhound Photography
No worries, Courtney! I was out of town this weekend but finally got a chance to go through it!
I can tell you really got on the dogs level and you definitely showed some interesting perspectives! It is very photo-journalistic, which is a very popular style right now. I really like the shots showing close up details of the dogs (owners LOVE those) like slide 7 and 9.
I agree with the first photo being the best! The eye contact with the dog is great! And the environment isn't distracting and really puts the focus on the dog. The crop works, because you cropped enough of the head off that it looks intentional. On a couple of the other shots, though, a teeny bit of the nose is being cropped off (4, 5, 11), which isn't ideal. You can always crop in closer from a wider shot after the fact, so it's safer to shoot a little wider because you never know when they're going to move their head! It's tricky, but you get in a habit of it and it becomes second nature. The color temperature and saturation is great for these! Be sure to watch how bright everything is when outside. The white spots on the dog are a little blown out. I have to remind myself of this often, because sometimes you can't tell when looking at the screen while you're shooting that your highlights are blown. You can always bump up exposure, but once a highlight is pure white, you've lost that details. Luckily this dog isn't all white, so it's not super noticeable. Just something to be careful of! You captured A LOT of different expressions - mouth open, mouth closed, looking at the camera, looking off camera, happy, serious, relaxed, action. It's great!
Great job, overall! Pets are not easy to work with and takes a little bit more patience and skill to capture them. So awesome work! It gets said a lot, but it's especially true with photography - practice makes perfect. Just keep shooting! You'll get better and better and figure out what does and doesn't work for you. If you have the chance to shoot film, I'd highly recommend giving that a try! Shooting film was what really made me lock in exactly what my settings were doing to my photos, cause you don't get another chance when you're shooting film! Plus film is just fun to experiment with and just has it's own unique look to it that digital just doesn't have.
I hope all my comments were helpful! Please let me know if you have specific questions or if I can explain something better. :)
