Lovely girl & so is your dog... this place looks very fimilar ?

Anyway as for the technique..

like to suggest 2 approach here

1) Use spot meter or EV+ to give the girl & dog more detail (too much in the shadow)...but the background will look overexposure.

2) Use Fill-in Flash or Reflective material to give both subject some more light on the face area.. Fill-in flash for close subject like this should be sufficent (fine-tune flash compensation).



Keep up the good work (^o^)

Did you take this photo in Melbourne?

lovely dog