A lovely late afternoon with exceptionally gorgeous clear light...and I missed it, driving home in a hurry. Decided to shoot anyway, as the dusk light can be pretty too. This is a neighbor's Arabian mare living across from her recently weaned baby. This is why I lug around the 70-200 f2.8 IS, for low light situations sans 'pod.
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Place: 135 out of 346 Avg (all users): 5.4526 Avg (commenters): 6.0000 Avg (participants): 5.2623 Avg (non-participants): 5.6053 Views since voting: 771 Views during voting: 355 Votes: 274 Comments: 6 Favorites: 0
This is in response to your request for an in depth critique.
I opened this up and thought it was for the Phobia challenge. Seeing as that I'm afraid of horses.lol Then, I see that it's for the shallow DOF challenge, and I think to myself that while there is DOF creating BOKEH, I don't really find that this fits in with the SHALLOW DOF category. Oh well...I'm not voting, so on to the image...
The very first thing I notice is the slight right tilt of everything. The white fence in the forground, the white fence in the background, the horizon line in the far background and the horses body.
I realize that due to the strong vertical line of his nose, that you probably lined the photo up by his head, and under normal circumstances, this might be fine, but I'm finding it hard to look at the photo and not want to tilt my head to the right to view it 'properly'.
Focus is really nice on the subject. This photo shows personality and that's very important in photos of animals in order to make them more than just snapshots.
the background is rather plain and boring, especially being out of focus for the challenge. Not really much you can do about that except lead the horse around looking for just the right background, which isn't really logical, so no big deal, just an observation.
The centered composition is ok, but I can't help but wonder if we had a bit more space to one side or the other what it might look like. He's looking straight ahead, so it might not work, but definately something to play with anyway.
I have made it a habit to stay away from horses my whole life, and don't know much about them, but this photo makes them look not so scary, and I actually enjoy looking at this image. Overall it's a nice image, but had I voted, I would have liked to see a bit more shallow DOF for the challenge.
~Heather~
Is it just me or does anyone else think of supermodels? Same rather befuddled look, a few nice strands of brown hair dropping and an elegant elongated face. This one doesn't snort and that's a clear advantage.
6 - Nice capture. Nice simple composition and good use of colors in the DOF as well. Criticism; 'if only' this were 640 height, would have helped a lot. Like the 'crispness' in the horse's right eye, the lighting is very nice, especially enhancing the 'fringe' over the eyes. Difficult, but if the 'whiskers' (even on that same right side) could have been a little sharper (especially to contrast against the white frame/fencing), likely make this even better in my opinion. Seems possible 'gamma/contrast' issues down the bottom of the neck/chest area, but could be markings on the horse. Just noticed, possibly some in the dark area of the ears too, but difficult to control, or adjust, especially under basic editing.
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