# Horse Photography



## lasso (Dec 21, 2012)

i love the 6and the 8 pic great job


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## pampam22 (Apr 22, 2013)

Lovely pictures! The 3rd pic is my favorite!


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## ziptothestar (Jan 29, 2012)

I like the saddleseat rider and the close-up of the foal in the flowers. Would be interested to see them without so much post processing.


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## HorseLovinLady (Jul 18, 2011)

Awesome pics!!


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## CowboyBob (Feb 11, 2013)

I like number 3


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## SMCLeenie (Mar 3, 2011)

They're all great but number 5 is my favorite.


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## LaYuqwam111 (Feb 9, 2012)

agreed, they're all great. but i love the 6th one. good images 

Kayla


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Thank you all so much! They were all taken with my Nikon Coolpix L120 and I did a little editing on them but not very much. All of them are of my horses except for 2 and 7.


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Here are a few more recent ones


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

As you can tell I like sepia


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## Kelly22790 (Oct 23, 2011)

WOW. Excellent job. These are awesome.


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## LaYuqwam111 (Feb 9, 2012)

i love the second last one in that lot  good job


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## Four Seasons (Jun 5, 2013)

Wow, great pics!


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## Kamakazi (Jun 10, 2013)

These were all great!


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Thank you all


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Here are a few more that I edited recently


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Here are a few more


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## Clevelandbays64 (Sep 13, 2013)

They are all so pretty!


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## rideverystride (Jul 19, 2013)

Gorgeous photos. All of them are stunning .


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

Thank you


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## 2horses (Oct 11, 2009)

You are a great photographer! I like too many of the pictures to point them out individually.


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

2horses said:


> You are a great photographer! I like too many of the pictures to point them out individually.


Thanks, I appreciate that!


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## BigNickMontana (Aug 5, 2013)

I am a professional photographer, I am going to offer you some solid constructive criticism on your pics. Understand I am not trying to put you down, I am trying to help you take better pictures. 

First this image:










There is way too much green in it, Vbuletin stripped the Meta data so I can not tell what camera you are using, but you need to be setting your white balance, if you don't get it quite right you can always do it after the fact in post, but you want to try to get it right in camera. 










On the image above both the Gamma and Saturation are way off, and the focus is not sharp. I am not sure if you did it on purpose trying to give it a Terry Richardson kind of feel, but it makes the color bland, and the detail of the image really suffers for it. If this image was tack sharp with the color spot on, I think it would be a lot stronger. 

Also it may be you were shooting into the sun, because it appears we are looking at the shadow side of the horse, and the issue with that is the shadow side tends to lose its color when you are exposing for the ambient light when the light is really hard like that. 










This image is the strongest of the group, the way the light skips across the horse is very interesting, the image needs to be sharpened though, and I think the image would have been stronger had you captured more of the horses head. 










This image also has a great deal of interest, and is probably the most interesting picture because there are several different stories the user could tell from the image. 

You have the woman sitting in the shadow of her horse, Even though it is hard lit you have some interesting effect with the light, again though the image really needs to be sharpened because the lack of sharpness makes it dull. 

I'd also bring the blacks down and the shadows up some which will give more definition to the grass, but it will bring back the shadow and make it less noticeable. 










This picture again is not sharp, it is very dull, and again you are on the shadow side, which even though you have used sepia toning you are losing the texture and tonality. 










This image is better, it is sharper but still a bit dull, you have some good texture and detail on the bridle. 










This picture as well is better, sharper, the shadow under his chin is a bit lost, bringing that up would help define the picture a bit better, it looks to me like that area may be so dark that some clipping is occurring on the blacks. 










This image is tuff because it took me a moment to even realize that I was looking at a horse laying in a bush. At first I couldn't tell I thought it was a rug. 

Which brings me into the final point I want to make to you, you have a few so so images here, and then you have some good solid images that are almost great images. 

The thing I am seeing across all of them as well is that it does not seem as though you are using the rule of thirds, if you are not familiar you really do need to know this, as well you need to know the Fibonacci curve as it relates to nature and the composition of a picture. 

When photographing horses it is tough to take a macro shot and make it look good. As a rule when I am photographing horses I do not cut any part of the head off, because the eye wants to follow to the point that is missing. 

In this image for example:










you cut the horses nose off, and you have several leading lines within the picture from the edges of the horses face to the halter that all point to its nose, and the image stops before you get there. 

What I would really recommend you try is to skip the heavy post processing right now and really focus on getting it right in camera, if you are not shooting on raw you should be, if you are not on manual settings you should be, also you really need to learn how to adjust your auto focus points quickly and efficiently. 

As well really pay attention to what adjusting the aperture does to your depth of field. 

I hope you don't feel like I got too down on you here, but this is what I see. 

You obviously have a lot of access to places where you can photograph horses, if you keep it up and continue to practice, I think you could get to where you are producing some exceptional images.


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

BigNickMontana said:


> I am a professional photographer, I am going to offer you some solid constructive criticism on your pics. Understand I am not trying to put you down, I am trying to help you take better pictures.
> 
> First this image:
> 
> ...


Thank you so much for the constructive criticism! I've never had anyone really tell me what I should do to make my photos better (I guess you'd say I'm self taught), and I'm grateful for the help! I'll probably be coming back here to read your suggestions again when I go to take more pictures.


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## BigNickMontana (Aug 5, 2013)

eeo11horse said:


> Thank you so much for the constructive criticism! I've never had anyone really tell me what I should do to make my photos better (I guess you'd say I'm self taught), and I'm grateful for the help! I'll probably be coming back here to read your suggestions again when I go to take more pictures.


You're welcome, That was the biggest fight for me when I really started to get into wanting to take better pictures, because I'd show people a picture and they would always say how great it was, it was like photographically I could do no wrong. 

Here is what you do though, take a picture that you know is mediocre, that you know is not all that great and throw it in a batch when you show it to people, if they say how great it is, you know you can not value their opinion or your work because they are just being nice. 

Also on you tube you should check out that nikon guy. He has some great stuff on how to take great photos.


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## eeo11horse (Jun 22, 2012)

BigNickMontana said:


> You're welcome, That was the biggest fight for me when I really started to get into wanting to take better pictures, because I'd show people a picture and they would always say how great it was, it was like photographically I could do no wrong.
> 
> Here is what you do though, take a picture that you know is mediocre, that you know is not all that great and throw it in a batch when you show it to people, if they say how great it is, you know you can not value their opinion or your work because they are just being nice.
> 
> Also on you tube you should check out that nikon guy. He has some great stuff on how to take great photos.


Thanks, I'll try looking him up.


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