Engagement pic with a horse

[wyogirl]

No the horse isn't married. C&C welcome.

 

[Overread17 5]

Ears forward on the horse - check
Moment of affection between the two riders - check
Slight level of amusement/animal action in the horse feeding - check

Composition is good - space for the horse to move into and whilst its at a sort of "looking down" angle it doesn't, in my view,detract because it helps to clearly show that moment between the riders (more side on or looking up would have missed part of that I think.


The only major problem really is the harsh lighting and honestly the only fix for that would have been to go back nearer to the golden hours in the morning or evening to get a softer light. Cloud cover could have helped as well to give a softer edge to the later in the day sunlight.

Depth of field might be a bit much for some and the background is a little busy, though I can appreciate that covering horse and two riders makes one want a smaller aperture to get it all in.

The only other thing that comes to mind is that the image quality of what you've posted looks a little fuzzy. Not sure what you took it on (that coupled with the depth of field makes me think something other than DSLR) however it could be the result of online compression and display (esp if you only did a rough resizing).

 

[wyogirl]

I did a quick and dirty resize to get it on the forum. Its not one of the pics I would add to my Flickr so a resize was in order.
As for the time of day.... we had been fighting the weather for three weeks so we took what we could get. I get what you are saying about the DOF but I was afraid that with the zoom, the crop sensor and the three subjects that I couldn't make it more shallow.

A little off topic... that damn horse had the "crazy eye" in about half of my shots.

 

[paigew]

I agree about the harsh light. Also I would crop the top darker part of the bg. Something like this

Of course this is not a true crop. Just a screenshot on my phone, but hopefully you get the idea. [emoji12]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Rick50]

Nice shot. Good analysis and I like Paiges crop.

 

[JustJazzie]

I Viewing from my cell so I won't critique but I like what I see!

 

[The_Traveler]

I don't know if this a 'traditional' shot in some parts of the country but, to me, its interesting and quite nicely done.
but.... the darkness of his face and hers, compared to the real brightness of the rest is a bit of a downer.

I tried lightening his face and hers, then brought just the figures and the horse up to a new layer.
Then on a duplicate base layer I darkened the edges, warmed it all, then used a paint daubs filter (smallest brush and least of everything) to soften all the background a bit
then merged all to a new layer and did a bit of glamour glow and it looked, at least to my eyes, quite a bit more soft and romantic - even with the nasty expression from the horse.

 

[The_Traveler]

Not much detail in the posted picture but this is a shot at it.

 

[wyogirl]

I've come to the conclusion that I could use some voice activated light stands and voice activated reflector stands. Fighting the wind in Wyoming is hell on your equipment. 30 mph is a good day.