.

it looks like some heavenly seal pup or something! Lovely work.

Thanks Andy

An excellent image. You took a somewhat ordinary photo and created a unique one. Very good work!

Thank you Gary.

Beautiful photo¡¡¡¡¡+10

A fabulous image. You took a unique photo and created a somewhat ordinary one. Very good work!

j/k LOL

Enjoy the seamless transition from the dog with its background.
Difficult exposure which you handled well.

The frame is a bit kitchy maybe... (or kitschy as described below although I did not add so much negative meaning to it as the definition gives it...) You know me better...

Nice focus.

Off center possibly?

Thanks for your critique Patrick. The seamless transition you refer to was created by the use of the blur tool in PS. Concerning the crop, I wanted this tight and I moved the dog's head as far up and right as I felt comfortable with using the mouth and nose as the focal point.. Any closer would have crowded the dog in my opinion. If I had moved him further away, there might be too much of the very nondescript background in view. The increased fur I feel is a better choice as it at least has some detail. I find the focal points to be the black and gray areas which seem off-center to me. I don't quite know what "kitchy" means. I played around with frames on this. I didn't like pure white or anything too dark.
As always, thank you for your in depth and sincere comments.

Michelle

I think he means "kitschy." Here's the definition from dictionary.com: Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts. The frame doesn't do anything for me, but it doesn't bother me either. I've always thought digital frames were kind of silly, but they can definitely add or distract from a piece.

I think the contrast could be bumped a bit as it appears a tad flat -- the link to the Picasa version looks better.

Crop and composition look good to me.

Great one, again. I agree entirely with Gary.

Dreamy! 7/7

Excellent work Michelle!

Awesome work Michelle! +10

Tommyguns

(laughing),, Michelle, when I looked at this this morning on your gallery this photo had me a bit confused. "what is that?, I thot, it can't be an artic fox-- its not the right profile and I think they have dark eyes" I could think of nothing in the wild it could be and all this time it was a desaturated pomeranian!
really nice job and wonderful creation
*/9

I had a similar reaction to Phos -i.e. what kind of wild arctic animal is this?
The frame is fairly low key so I don't see how it can be called kitschy.
I like it - the processing and crop work very well.

the white is great

Thanks folks. I'm happy you enjoy this.

Phos and Don,

I guess I could understand your confusion especially in the wake of my posting history. I rarely shoot domestic animals and frequently seek out wild ones. This dog was a bit wild, however. It was jumping all around in excitement at my presence. I had difficulty in capturing a good image on that rather dark and cloudy day.
Thanks for the definition Brandon. I do agree, however, that the frame is rather neutral. I tried white and a darker gray as well but found that too much contrast would detract from the photo.

Michelle

Excellent work michelle +10

good shot.

Great composition!
agree Patrick comment a Fabulous image +++10

OMG! Very very good..

9/9

the colour is great!

Beautiful composition, great shot

excellent work
could use a bit more contrast
+9

It´s beautiful!!!!!
Really beautiful!!!

Very good work!

Very Good idea.

Nice Different POV. I really really like it!

Looks little bit scary ... Like the original one also.

top marks !!!
Florin

good composition, but i think it's overprocessed.

I'm looking forward to someone doing a photomanip changing this dog to "Falkor, the luckdragon" from the Neverending Story

You did a really good job with postprocessing, but I have to agree that I don't like the frame.

+6

Nice capture.

Way too flat, elites should do better. Needs more contrast because it fades in the background too much.

border doesn't work.

The fur edges were intentionally blended into the background by using the blur tool in Photoshop. I'll try to do better Rose so that my photos meet your elite criteria. Perhaps you could give me some pointers on how to achieve this goal rather than making such broad statements?

wow! i personally love the soft tones and contrasting. that eye really came out amazing.

Very good capture.... I love everything about it

You are still awesome!

Great capture!...beautiful whites!
Carlos

Great lightning, I really like this shot and on top of that dem dog so cuute! +8/8