I really like this image. Maybe I have my “mom” glasses on but overall it is a winner. I would crop the grass or hay that is off to the side and frame it. Sharp image!

I love this! Nothing beats the love of boys and their puppy. I would maybe make the background a little darker but not much.I like how they are looking at you and the dog is not. It makes it not look as posed. :)

Nice sharp well composed image. My only comment is that my eyes are drawn first to the blown out sky. Maybe a vignette would help.

This is great! I love all three of their expressions. I agree that the wisps on the left side are a bit distracting, and would crop it out. Other than that I think that it is a great image. I love the back lighting as well!

I like everything about this photo! The B&W, the cute boys, the frame, everything, a very well balanced family photo!!!

Great detail and contrast. I would have moved in a little closer for the shot and/or removed the one dark tree/pole to the right in Photoshop. Overall, a nice image, love that the dog’s face is sharp (not easy!).

Too cute. Love their faces…having a good time. The only thing I would change is background…if you could have. Can still do that in PS by bluring and cropping or a vignette.

I love their expressions and the dirty little knee.

Really cute! I love how the pose is natural and really shows their bond. It’s a great storytelling image. The image is sharp and I think the editing is done well. The grass of to the side is a bit distracting so I might crop it out. But overall well done!

You captured a very sweet moment, I love the expressions and the closeness of the boys. Even though the background is a little blurred, it’s still a little distracting. I would have opened the aperture a little or moved the boys to a different spot. I love the black and white, it really draws focus to their sweet faces. Great photo!

I love their expressions and the dirty little knee. :) I do feel like the background may be a bit too bright. Overall a very nice picture though!

Nice and clear. Love the emotion in the faces. I agree with the statement of the background being blown out. I would edit out the spots on the boy’s hand, and the stains on the smaller boy’s vertical knee. I like the grass stains on the lower knee, it makes the image original. Nice image.

I absolutely love this image!! I would love to see it with the background a tad bit darker.. but it is a picture that could be a gorgeous canvas for sure!!

I love this picture. It’s so natural looking. Only thing I can say is maybe a little bit blurrier background and I would love to see it in color. (I’m just a big color lover though lol) it’s a beautiful image!

I love this photo! The boys and their dog are in great focus and the black and white really shows off a lot of detail in their faces. I would like to see it cropped in more, and maybe just a touch darker. However it’s still a wonderful photo. :)

I love black & white I wish I could see it in color as well. I I may have gone with a different aperture or gone with a ss/250 – 300 to reduce the back lighting from the sky as to not over power my subjects.

I too think this image is wonderful. I love how natural the boys look and especially the little bit of dirt on the knee. I mean, the little dog is all wrapped up in his leash! This is truly a “boys will be boys” shot. Love it! Great job!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this shot!! like everyone else said, the hay or whatever to the left side of the photo is a bit distracting but everything else is just beautiful!! well done!

This is such a wonderful photo! The boys and the dog are sharp and clear, and they really stand out against the blurred background. About the only thing I would change would be like others have said – to crop out the hair/fur/grass (not sure what it is, LOL) on the left side of the photo. Otherwise it is such a perfect image of childhood :) Beautiful.

I love it! To me you captured the moment. Great job!

This photo screams PRECIOUS! Really. I look at this and it shows tender love among brothers and their sweet doggie! My touch on the photo would be to slightly darken the corners. Not too much, just a little to create a dramatic effect. Great composition. And I love that it looks so natural.

Nice use of setting and relationships. The brush to the left is distracting and almost makes it look like there’s another dog off frame while the dog in the frame is showing stress signals. You can get great doggie eye attention by crinkling paper or squeaking a toy to get him to look at you! Nice use of black and white too to make a clean presentation.

I like how the different personalities are so visible.
I would have taken shot with light in their eyes.

Love how these boys are so close to each other all snuggled up. I would make the blacks a little bit blacker or the background not quite as bright. I just love the dirty knees and hands…all boy with the baseball and dog! So fun!

There is so much good going on here, what a great image. The composition is wonderful, the pose (or, unpose!) is great, fantastic eye contact. My only tiny suggestion would be to remove the chimney in the background-as well as the grass on the left side. Black and white was a great choice for this shot, it really brings you right to the boys without being distracted by any of the details or colors the image may have.

This is a great picture. I really like the natural look it has. It is a bit on the light side for my taste, great composition.

LOVE it is black and white! The image is amazing. I agree with a darker background or vignette. The boys are adorable! http://www.daniellegeriphotography.com

I’m not usually a big fan of B&W photos, but I think you executed it very well here! The metering on your subjects is good so nobody is too shadowy and you don’t lose any detail. There does appear to be something distracting going on on the hand holding the dog — maybe edit that out? That feels very nitpicky, but I’m having trouble coming up with anything else to suggest :) I love the baseball in hand and dirt on the knees. Great portrait!

I love that this picture is in black and white. It makes the picture timeless. The top of their heads and sky seem over exposed and it’s the first thing my eyes were drawn to. Maybe try vignetting a little bit or using the adjustment brush/graduated filter for the sky? The way the boys and dog are posing in this picture is absolutely perfect. What a beautiful image!

What a sweet moment to capture! I love that you can just imagine the dog is about to give a big smooch to the boy on the right. So cute! I also love that the youngest boy is holding a baseball, and has a scuffed knee; you can tell these boys are just taking a quick break from being boys to pose for this picture. I concur with others above regarding the background being distracting (sky and buildings). I would add that I am not a big fan of t-shirts with graphics. They can be distracting as well; maybe just PS out the “BG”. Their facial expressions are perfect and capture a more natural appearance, rather than the cheesy smiles adorable little boys have a tendency to give during photos. Wonderful image!

I really had a hard time finding something, anything I didn’t like. I love the light. I love the black and white. I love the composition. I especially love the grass stained knees!! So, to be super picky, all I could find was the little bits of grass or bush peeking in from the left side. I think I would have cloned them out. But this is really such a sweet shot of these two cuties! Great job :)

I love the expressions on their faces and how the pup is giving sugars! I would lower the exposure on buildingsin the back with Adobe bridge (if you shoot raw) just so the attention goes to their faces without having the buildings be in there so prominent. I don’t think the sky is bad being blown out. It brings a certain lightness to the picture that I really like. I personally hate vignettes so I’m glad you didn’t go with one, that seems to be the thing people overuse nowadays. I’m also loving the dirty knees!! I have 2 boys and this speaks perfectly to my mommy eyes :) Great job!

Beautiful picture, great light and sharpness, natural and nice expressions (and the dog’s is hilarious! LOL). The only thing I’d change would be to get rid of the slightly distracting elements (the grass on the left edge and the chimney behind the younger boy), but that’s definitely a minor thing. And I love the b&w edit you created, beautiful contrast! As several other mentioned before me, this is a gorgeous pic overall and it’s hard to find something to critique there!

The boys smiles and the leaning in of the younger boy shows warm emotions. What I would do differently would be to do a tighter crop so the boys are zoomed in closer and take up the whole photograph, this eliminates peripheral distractions and keeps you admiring their sibling connection. I would also play with exposure or the contrast slider for a contrasty look. You captured a winning moment, bravo!

The has nothing of interest in it, try to catch clouds so it is more interesting.

Hi Christina,
This is a charmer of an image with so much to like about it! Love the triangular design of the boys and their dog, choice of B&W, the light, and expressions captured. In post, I would experiment with lightening a couple of the darker spots in the background and maybe add a touch more blur to the background, also. I’d crop out the grass that sticks in on the left hand side as it’s a little distracting. When taking the photo, I would probably have tried stepping to the right a touch, thus the dog’s face and boy’s face would have both presented clean, non-overlapping silhouettes. I’m not sure if this would have been better or worse, but I would have checked that out. So many great story telling elements come together here – the ball, scuffed knee, two different personalities (as seen by the boy’s smiles), youth, love of pets, and the relationship of brothers (I assume)…that’s what is so wonderful about the art of photography, the ability to tell those stories! Well done!

Great choice for a b/w image to minimize distractions from the tshirts. I like the sharpness, and your focus looks good. With the amount of light available, you probably could have lowered your ISO to 100 and increased your shutter speed. The overall tone of the photo is quite bright, and increasing the dark tones or contrast on the boys may help them stand out more. It’s a great capture and their expressions are clearly genuine. Great job!

Love the photo! Things that have already been mentioned is exactly what I caught too. :) Grass to the left, smoke stack or pole at the back and a little blown out but all fixable in Photoshop and LR!! Great Job!

I like the photo. Maybe center it. TY

I have two boys around the same age as yours and am sooooo impressed that you captured such a sweet image! Good job! The background is a little too bright but I only decided that after staring at it forever wondering what I would change. It’s a great picture!

It’s a beautiful photo. I love how the boys and their pooch are connected in the center, creating an almost triangle. The black and white conversion is stellar. How did you get that? It adds to the timeless feel of this photo. The only thing I might do is crop out or clone out the other dog. The wispy hair is a little distracting. You must share you bw conversion secret! Jealous!

Nice faces. Crop out the distractions on the left edge – the grassy stuff. Pull in the right edge so it’s a tighter crop overall, balancing the dog nose dead center horizontally… Your eye will go where there is extreme, valueless contrast… get rid of the little vertical black thing above the shoulder of the boy on the right (might be a chimney?) down to the blurred treeline. On the left side there’s a high contrast black spot there too above the building, raise it up to a higher value. Good shot :)

I love this photo love the B&W, I love how the little boy is leaning in to the bigger one, how they are both looking at the camera and their expressions, and how the dog is gazing at the little boy – all that makes me want to spend time looking at this image.

The only thing that caught my eye was that the way the bigger boy is sitting with his legs under him makes it looks like he has not legs (at first glance). I wonder if he were sitting criss-cross if that might work better compositionally?

I love this pic and the moment you have captured.

Thank you to everyone for looking at my image and giving me some great ideas for improvement or reassurance that I’m going in the right direction :-). The color one was terrible because of the way the sun was behind them and the reflection of the grass on everything so I switched it to B&W. I usually increase clarity in LR on my B&W conversions and this one I definitely had to play around with the curves, etc. I think my 2nd chihuahua was in the picture so I cropped him out. Anyway, you all had great points. Thank you so much for that and taking the time to comment!!

Great b&w conversion, The sky looks a touch blown out. I really like how you have the boys and dog cuddling together on the left side of the photo. I like that you kept the image open by staying back instead of closing in like them.

I love the fact you have a connection between the boys and their puppy! Wow such a sweet moment. I think what I might have done is knocked down the fstop but I seriously adore the composition!