More from the showjumping CnC requested

A few more shots from the showjumping that I did a few weeks back. Any feedback or input is greatly welcome. Also a question - when one has two primary subjects (horse and rider in this case) which have opposing directions of focus which one does one follow compositionally.

At a jump the horse might be heading onto one side of the frame with its head direction, ears and motion of body, whilst the ride might well be looking in totally the opposite direction. So which does one "follow" and leave space for in the composition? I shot most of mine like that in portrait aspect because of the hight of rider and horse, which really only leaves space to follow one subject - landscape would get more room to allow for both, but its starting to pull back a lot from the event itself - ok in an outdoor shoot, but indoors this can mean introducing a lot more distracting elements into the shot in the form of background or foreground content.

Great photos. My only comment is on number two. I'd rather see the horses front legs tucked up as they are in photo 3.

You're right that the riders are usually looking off in the direction of the next jump as they are taught to do.

Nice sharp shots, my suggestion would be moving around the venue and trying to get a less distracting background (If possible) my eyes are immediately drawn to the orange chairs

My thanks both - and yes I agree I really hope next time I can get some angles that are not focused toward teh balcony. At f4 already I doubt I could do much to get the background blurred out without impacting the depth of field on rider and horse too significantly (really its only 1 stop difference to f2.8 which wouldn't make a huge world of difference).

nice set

Many thanks Watt!

Sometimes we're limited to where we can shoot from, but if there is ANY way possible to get in position for better backgrounds, it does affect the overall quality of the shot. The blue concrete walls and orange seats are not real attractive!

dave