Big dog, little dogs by Ruth Hartnup is licensed under CC BY 2.0
This is a fun action shot of dogs chasing each other in the park. The full photo might tell a story about the families bringing their kids and dogs to the park to play. Maybe the people in the background are simply spectators in awe of the dogs. However, I think that the focus of this photo is better when on the dogs. The photo is titled after the dogs, so I think there should be a greater emphasis on them. The extra background doesn’t really add value to the main point of the image.
Focus on the Chase by Lena Nguyen licensed under CC BY 4.0.
It is a derivative of Big dog, little dogs by Ruth Hartnup licensed under CC BY 2.0
I edited the photo in this way to focus on the dogs in the photo. I want this photo to tell the story from the dogs point of view. With just seeing the dogs, I imagine that the big dog is thinking “must catch up!”, while I imagine the small dogs might be regretting their decision to run into the water, thinking “why did I go in here” or “must get out”! Or they’re all having the time of their lives out there. Or maybe, the big dog accidentally got off his leash and the little dogs are running for their lives. It’s up to you to interpret.
To change the story, I cropped out the unnecessary background of the people in the park. The main subject is the large dog that I positioned on the right third of the photo. I also left some space on the left for movement as that is the direction they are running. I didn’t crop it closer in on the dogs because I wanted to keep the lines showing the land around them. I didn’t want it to seem like they’re just running on water as I think that would be a little distracting. I would love if this shot could have been positioned slightly behind the dogs so that you can see more of the direction they are running and have a better perspective from their point of view, but I still think it’s a great action shot.
Hi Lena! I think cropping out the people in the background was the right move, because they do seem inconsequential. I like that you left some of the ground in the bottom right corner of the photo so you can see where the dogs are coming from, but you left just enough of the top so viewers can also tell where they are going. I don’t think you had a lot of options on how to crop this one because if you took out too much of the photo, it would indeed appear as if the dogs were walking on water, and you wouldn’t be able to tell how large of a body of water they were on. Are they in the ocean? We wouldn’t know, so I think you did it just right, and that little dog in the front is cracking me up.
Hi Lena! It seems to me that the meaning of this image has been slightly changed by your crop. With the people in the background looking at the dogs, it is a very public scene. Without the people, such as in your crop, the image becomes quite private. Like the dogs are having a moment to themselves to play. I like that you left room for the dogs to run into in your crop.
You could have also cropped the photo to include only the front two dogs with the two people sitting on the bench above them. This might turn the image into a story about friendship or love, rather than just playful running.
Hello Lena,
For the first moment I saw your cropped picture it gave me the reaction that the big dog is running on the surface of the water. Jack Russel dogs are pretty fast and sneaky too. This picture makes me wonder what happened to this chase. Did the little dogs were able to run away, or the big dog was able to catch up with both of them. Nice work cropping the original picture.
Thank you
Hi Lena,
Thank you for sharing this photo! I too did a photo with dogs running/playing for my assignment. One thing I loved about yours was how the focal point was changed. It was very easy to be pulled to looking at the bridge in the original iteration as well as the people who are standing on it. Additionally, I noticed how cropping out the bridge and people made the 2nd iteration darker and moody because we were losing that initial light from the sun shining and it being cropped.