Horse and rider...feedback please!

[ScottDR]

Hello all,

Please check out these two shots I took yesterday and give me feedback. I have finally done enough playing around and reading to trust in evaluative metering...yes, a newbie to digital (but an oldie with film :). I welcome any feedback...these are JPG's and untouched, shot at f4.5 with my 24-105L.

The Arizona sun is incredibly harsh and the background is the least offensive I could get. That being said, I am new to equine photography (and the possibilities of digital corrections etc. Thanks in advance!

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii96/ScottDR/Dot%20and%20Sarah/DotDec152007139resize.jpg

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii96/ScottDR/Dot%20and%20Sarah/DotDec152007091resize.jpg

[Titus213]

Sorry, don't see any images.

[ScottDR]

Sorry, don't see any images.

Whoa, thanks for the heads up! I resized and reposted, but did something wrong. I'll try to correct that now.

Thanks again!

[OC Zoom]

Sky looks great, but the poles in the background are very distracting. Horse and rider riding away from the photographer are hard to do. Try just the opposite. Have them running toward you for a better shot. Work on you composition and it will improve your shots. Hope that helps. Your camera is tilted slightly down on the left and the images don't appear to be too sharp. Work on one thing at a time and those pix will come along.

[tonydee]

Hi Scott,

Looks like you know what you're doing :-). The first one's got great colour in the sky, nice detail in the shadows, a bit edgy and dynamic with the framing being so tight above/below horse, rider and light pole, and just needs a simple rotate in software (you could try www.gimp.org if you're after some reasonable free editing software - works on Windows, Mac and Linux).

Second one looks a little washed out, but might be improved with some white balance and saturate/vibrancy adjustment, and cropping a little off the left to keep the riding on a life of thirds (shame to lose the witch's hat marker though).

You can do all these edits easily in post-processing software like the Gimp. You may also like to edit your user profile on this site, adding "IMAGE EDITING OK", and see what other people are able to do with your images (ask them how they did it if you like the result and they didn't explain adequately).

Cheers,

Tony

[LeuceDeuce]

The 2nd one reminded me of a merry-go-round. She's almost holding onto the pole coming out of the horse's back :)

[ScottDR]

Thanks folks, I appreciate all the feedback so far...keep them coming please!

I realize the background is crazy...trust me, it would only be worse if I took them from any other side of the arena :).

Tony, thanks for the tips on using gimp. My wife uses it all the time and I'm considering doing so myself (she's a Linux girl).

I just may have to post a couple more.