I appreciate your persistence, @warrior-princess! I’m glad you’re figuring out how to get the forums to work for you.
The posture, composition, angle, and lighting are really nice in 20221013_11384514.jpg. The other photos of the dog in the shade are too great a dynamic range to get the nice color in the background as well as detail in the fur. The centered composition works here since you have leading lines of various types pointing in toward the dog. The colors are vibrant because of the angle of light. The horizon needs to be straightened, though. And the background simplified somehow if you really wanted a not-snapshot-like photo. Or, instead of simplified, making it part of the story of the photo. The only reason we think of the background elements as being distractions is because they don’t relate to the “story” of the photo. If somehow you could create a photo that had a story of something like “my dog in a park” feeling, then the background would not be distracting looking. That’s where creativity, experience, experimenting come in. 🙂
