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A girl and her horses... #26261
11/07/09 10:31 PM
11/07/09 10:31 PM
Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
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ChristopherCoy Offline OP
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ChristopherCoy  Offline OP
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Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
Lets try this again! I still haven't gotten the hang of this particular forum yet. This will be my second attempt at this post.

Now then, I shot these (and a lot more) down at our barn today. I picked a fine time to do it (high noon) but I had fun none the less. Here are the first few. I'm still working on my sky processing.

C&C welcome!










Re: A girl and her horses... [Re: ChristopherCoy] #26262
11/08/09 10:44 AM
11/08/09 10:44 AM
Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
James Morrissey Offline
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James Morrissey  Offline
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Carpal Tunnel

Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
Hey Chris,

I really like the shots with both the horse and the girl in them. I particularly like the use of B&W. Honestly though, the shots of the horse solo I did not think were up to the same quality. It looks like you used a long lens and a relatively shallow aperture that blurs out the foreground (please correct me if I am wrong). This is seen particularly on the first two shots. The 2nd shot is acceptable in my mind, but the first shot, particularly with the lighting issues, needs a bit of help and I think the blur actually distracts as opposed to enhancing the image.

Over-all though, I think these are very good!

Thanks for sharing,
James

Re: A girl and her horses... [Re: James Morrissey] #26263
11/08/09 08:38 PM
11/08/09 08:38 PM
Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
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ChristopherCoy Offline OP
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ChristopherCoy  Offline OP
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Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
You'd be entirely correct. I was using a 55-200, and I was shooting wide open. I WANTED the foreground blurred so that the focus would be on the horse and not the grass in front of it.

Last edited by ChristopherCoy; 11/08/09 08:39 PM.
Re: A girl and her horses... [Re: ChristopherCoy] #26264
11/09/09 06:25 PM
11/09/09 06:25 PM
Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
Jim Garvie Offline
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Jim Garvie  Offline
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Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
Christopher,
love the subject matter. As you already mentioned, shooting at mid-day creates some pretty harsh lighting and very deep shadows. Your first image shows that pretty clearly.

I love the B&W treatment. The composition is good and it lends itself very nicely to B&W conversion. However, the vertical lines are not straight up and down. That's a small point but I'd keep that in mind when you're doing post-production. Always make the straight lines run at 90 degrees to the sides and top/bottom of the frame.

Overall, I like the fact that you shot these from a low point of view. I like Image #2 as well but for me there's a bit too much foreground grass that doesn't do much compositionally. I don't like the rear view of the horse -- but that's a personal preference. I don't like rear views of any animal unless you're really trying to show something off like a great rear movement going away. The movement shot is nice but I wish you were closer and had cleaned up the background wires.

I think you should give this another try either early in the morning or late in the afternoon to get some better light. And try tighter framing. We know that horses graze in pastures. Unless the pasture is absolutely gorgeous, let's see more of the horse.

Good start.

Jim


Jim Garvie
www.jagphoto.biz
Re: A girl and her horses... [Re: Jim Garvie] #26265
11/09/09 09:06 PM
11/09/09 09:06 PM
Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
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ChristopherCoy Offline OP
Wanderer
ChristopherCoy  Offline OP
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Joined: Oct 2009
Fort Worth, TX
Well this is the first of a long line of shoots I'll be doing on these horses. We board our own horse at a ranch that is a rescue for PMU horses. Most of the horses, well all of the horses in the pictures above are available for adoption, after being saved from slaughter and RE-trained. I've agreed to start providing photographs for their website to help out. So you'll be seeing more of these later.

I do have one question about your comment on vertical lines though. Is it more important to have the barn appear to be standing straight up, or the horse? Because if you make the barn wall vertical, the horse would appear to be leaning. In this particular photo, I was focusing on the horse and rider so I only paid attention to making sure they appeared vertical.

And its funny that you say I should get in tighter and show more of the horse. In most of my stuff I tend to shoot VERY tight. Its very evident in my dog pictures on my blog. However I have been studying other photographers work intensively lately and noticed that there is a big trend in the 'looser' shots that include a lot of background and surroundings. Although, as you mention, those backgrounds are a lot more colorful than our very bland Texas pastures. So I've been trying to develop a more diverse 'eye' than my normal, very tightly cropped one.

Thanks for the comment and tips! I am greatly enjoying this forum, as I've not been able to get the same kind of information elsewhere.

Re: A girl and her horses... [Re: ChristopherCoy] #26266
11/10/09 09:05 AM
11/10/09 09:05 AM
Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
Jim Garvie Offline
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Jim Garvie  Offline
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Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
Using different techniques and seeing what works for your eye is a great idea. I personally haven't noticed that images are getting "looser" but it all depends on the subject, the buyer and the objective of the images. There is no one correct imaging approach.

With pet portraits, I like to get as close as I can without distorting the animal. For me, ultra-close just doesn't work. For horses, I like to capture some of the environment but also do tight head-studies and classic body poses with OOF backgrounds. My only problem with these shots is that the backgrounds tend to distract a bit -- like on the B&W shot -- rather than enhance the subjects. I'd correct that shot for straight lines and if the horse is standing on a hill, then he should be leaning.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

Jim


Jim Garvie
www.jagphoto.biz

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