Photo C&C

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Kelly Kiefer on December 15, 2009 at 11:03pm

I really like the photo. The composition and DOF are great. My only suggestion would be to crop out a little, tiny bit of the bottom. The blurred fence in the foreground, showing so much of it, is just a little distracting. My eye was drawn to that first, then the horse. Just my humble opinion. Great job.

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Permalink Reply by Katie on December 16, 2009 at 4:59am

I agree with Kelly, very nice but the focal point is wrong, I would crop out a bit more than "tiny" :) I see what you were going for but you would almost need to "ride" the fence all the way down to the horse if you get what I am saying.

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Permalink Reply by CameraClicker on December 16, 2009 at 10:41am

Here is the original photo:

Sometimes a shallow depth of field is pleasing, sometimes not. Generally portraits benefit from shallow DOF, landscapes generally do not. In macro photography shallow DOF usually can not be helped.

In this sort of photo, I prefer it to be sharp front to back, or at least front to subject. The eye is drawn to brighter sections first so adjusting the brightness of some areas can improve some photos...

This version has had the brightness of the fence reduced and the horse and watermark sharpened to make them stand out more. What do you think, improvement or not?

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Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on December 18, 2009 at 7:19pm

To be honest this photograph really bothers me. It seems to me that if the intent is to make a nice photograph of the horse for the owner, for yourself as a saddle horse owner, or for an advertisement for a breeder there isn't enough information about the horse since most of him (her) is behind the fence and not visible. My observation is that the fence in the foreground is highly distracting from your original intent; the horse. I don't see how to overcome those obstacles with the elements of the photograph as it stands. If this were from one of my students in the depth of field lesson, to illustrate shallow d.o.f. I would applaud the effort, but when it is intended as a work of art in which the horse is the primary subject I just think it falls short. Sorry.

The horse is a magnificent creature, from what I can see, and I would encourage you to give it another go. Always bear in mind that if your intent is to show the horse, anything that is a distraction from that is an impediment to your original intent. The light source is perfect for the photograph.

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Permalink Reply by Ray Devlin on February 4, 2010 at 3:34pm

i actually think there is some value in the composition. I like the idea of the horse peering over the fence. Agree with others: a tighter crop would remove the blurry fence

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