This is an image I took a couple months ago, right before winter hit. This is my parent’s foxhound, Copper (yes, like “Fox and the Hound”), and I’ve been documenting his life every four weeks since they adopted him at 8 weeks old.

Although I mostly practice photography so much because of my love for it, I take it very seriously and am always trying to get a good composure, good lighting, and an interesting way to show my subject matter. In this shot, I was trying to highlight the amber color of his eyes in the bright sunlight. Getting a photo where he is not only looking at me, but also towards a bright light source, was extremely challenging, and this turned out to be only one of two photos I got that met my objective. He was lying behind a tree with his favorite toy, a flat tractor tire, tired out from playing when I took this photo. I made sure to crouch behind the tree, so I wouldn’t come in the way of the sunlight, and the tree’s shadow fell perfectly over his face to show off his eye color.

At one of my classmate’s suggestions, I have edited this photo. I only deepened the shadows to create more of a contrast (the original can be found here) as I liked the lighting so much I didn’t feel the need to tamper with it too much.