Mattie

This is Mattie. My daughter was giving her a workout yesterday so I took a few shots. She is as gentle as it gets. She is becoming my favorite of our horses. She is big 16-3 hands maybe 17. When no one is home but me, against orders from my wife, I let her out to roam. She stays right around and follows me when I'm in the yard.

She is getting her winter coat now and doesn't look near as good as she does in the summer.

40D
17-50mm tamron
ISO 200
26mm
f/5.6
1/800



I wish she hadn't eaten a lot of my wifes flowers/or that my wife hadn't noticed.

Ron,

The title is Mattie! I thought that was sufficient. My eyes dropped to the end of the post and saw "I wish she hadn't eaten a lot of my wifes flowers/or that my wife hadn't noticed." and realized I'd better rewind and start again.

The picture shows a happy girl on a handsome chocolate horse. For me, i thought the girl was the star! So I realized that there might be an issue to either naming the image or to presenting the image so that title and image match in intent.

Now, this business of naming does not have any particluar rules and it would be fine to title the picture "Shadow of two Females on Grass" or "Rider in Blue Pants". One could also call the picture "Liberated Woman" or even "Red Undershirt" However, there is a challenge for this picture to easily present the idea that the mare, Mattie is the star of the photograph.

For me, I'd try to take the picture with a wide aperture or a long lens to limit focus to the front of the horse and have the rider in a monotone color. Even better, Mattie alone!

How does one take a picture of a horse without distractions.? For sure an energetic smiling young woman is a competing element. so I asked Ron if I could get permission to experiement with his picture. I made an attempt which I offer not as a solution but just a way of starting discussion and hopefully people will post their own portraits of horses so we'll learn something.



© 2007 Ron Morse edits by Asher Kelman

My approach is a slight blur to the background and improving the contrast and local sharpening of the front of the horse. I cropped away some of the field to better place the head of the horse in a more ideal position. I added a quick shadow to the left background but didn't match the shadow under the horse, but would be done if it was supposed to be printed.

Hopefully the horse stands out more.

Asher

Did I make such I bad post that the thread got killed off?

Don't you guys photograph or like horses or have your own way of doing horse portraits?

Asher

Well Asher since no one else seems interested here is Mattie without any distractions this time.

I don't quite understand why the pictures look different/flatter in imageshack than they do in bridge. They are converted to 8 bit, srgb then save for web before they go to bridge. They actually lose quite a lot.

I like that better, Ron. There is no ambiguity.

Also the mare is looking at us so that adds to the sence of "Portrait". I notice the shadow and wonder whether that might make a blancing feature for the composition. That neck and head is such a powerful mass.

I can see it's difficult to present the "person" of the horse. Most of us are limited in experience with animals to bring social values to those of animals and make a convincing portrait. This latest picture does bring us considerably closer. It's a great learning experience.

The superior position but gentle look of the horse, helps make an impression of inquiring but not dominating.

Asher

The superior position but gentle look of the horse, helps make an impression of inquiring but not dominating.





In a life time with horses she is as gentle as it gets. She is quite a big horse but very very mild and likes attention.

She is very interested in the camera and wants to smell it. When the shutter clicks she really wants to check it out.

With permission, here's my concept.



I decided that it was very hard to deal with the distraction of the green grass!

Asher

I like the B&W version but would have liked it better if you had kept her ears Asher.

Ron Morse said:

I like the B&W version but would have liked it better if you had kept her ears Asher.

Click to expand...

Hi Ron,

The reason why the top of the ears are left out, is that the horse now is looking into the frame and the picture is this more intimate. Just how I saw it. I did try a lot of other versions but I wanted to maximize a sense of motivation on the horse's behalf to meet us!

Anyway, that is my intention.

Asher

Gave it a try in square, with the ears, and a little less light but in bit increase in shadows to (try to) help the left eye. I am stil in my infancy with lightroom but another option nevertheless.

quickly done.




Best wishes,

Ray

I really like the image of just the horses head but adore asher's b&w version keeping the shadow in the frame bringing balance and giving more about the horse then just her gaze. Gorgous horse. I miss being around horses and love the winter coat that she is getting, gives her character.

Ray West said:

quickly done

Click to expand...

Wish I could do this quickly, made me laugh, what a great idea Ray. I also like Asher's black and white version, enhances the texture, but she needs her ears!! She looks a lovely steady, calm, trusting horse, give her a pat and a bit of carrot from me Ron.

Lack of ears does create tension, doesn't it!

Asher

Hi Janet,

'quickly done' is relative. 'crudely executed' may have been more precise, it was just to show an idea of taking Asher's idea more into your face, so to speak. I guess a shadow or two could be added, more attention paid to the selections, etc. If Matte had been a goat, I may have been tempted to show her chewing her way out through the page. (why do I say 'page'? Perhaps the grey frame should be your vdu screen, your windows desktop, perhaps her nose in your soup?)

Best wishes,

Ray

At the time of this thread I was having big problems with my computer. I had just installed CS3 and everything went wrong with my computer. After a couple of weeks of trying everything I could think of, everything others recommended I removed everything adobe and got it working again to my satisfaction.
In the meantime I lost track of this thread.

Martin Kuivenhoven said:

Gave it a try in square, with the ears, and a little less light but in bit increase in shadows to (try to) help the left eye. I am stil in my infancy with lightroom but another option nevertheless.

Click to expand...

I think that I would have liked it more a little lighter Martin but the more I look at it the more I am starting to like it.

I like the balance of the space on the left!

Asher

Ray West said:

quickly done.

Best wishes,

Ray

Click to expand...

I don't know how to do that Ray but I like it.

Ray, or anyone else, can we make that border wood of a barn or home?

Asher

It was over a month ago, I can not remember the exact details, but it involved layers. I did it my way, but there are tutorials, probably for better methods.

I think it went something like this.

crop image to horses head (including the nose.
select a rectangle at the bottom as far up the nose as you want over the edge, copy to a new layer.
magic wand or pixel by pixel, select the horses nose from that layer, and copy to a new layer (maybe you invert some of the selections, you'll see if you try it).
get the size of the image, then make a new image with a bigger size for the frame area. Into this frame area drop whatever you want, wood grain effect or whatever. It is worth while photographing things just for background frame/textures e.g. fallen leaves, planks, grass, bale of hay, anything sort of randomly repetitive.

In this case I think I just put on a graded grey. Then copy and paste the horse image into the frame area. Finally select a rough shape with the selection tool with a fair sized feathered edge.

I then put it into a larger white background, my idea was to give a sort of floating image, the surroundings have a dramatic effect on any thing we see, (but I forgot the blue opf background - not tried it with the new sexy white opf bg).

I have dripped on before about why we stick with rectangular framing, there is no need on the web.

If it were my image, I may even experiment without using a frame, just a bit of old creosoted wood, with the horses head image glued on the top, perhaps some actual bits of old leather harness. It depends where you are aiming the resulting image, of coarse.

Hth.

Best wishes,

Ray

Interesting Ray. As soon as I get some things finished around here and have some time to do what I want I need to start experimenting with some of these different things.