Help/Suggestions with PP on this pic

[Gary A.]

My take:

 

[Raj_55555]

Thanks everyone for the awesome response on this one, didn't expect so many people to help out on this!
To conclude "I" think the problem was with the crop as corrected by Designer and adding some space behind the horse seemed to make it more proportional, as seen in the Lew's example and mentioned by Brian.

Maybe it makes sense to everyone else, but could someone explain to me what the dome shape is between the two mountain ranges. At first I thought it was a shadow because it appears to be part of the last range, but from what? And why is it a different color if it isn't a shadow? I'm pretty sure it is part of the snowy range.

That dome shape is part of another valley called Gidara Bugyal, I had plans to trek to that point but unfortunately the snow was deeper than my height

 

[scooter2044]

The photo is beautiful but I do agree about the crop. You and the Traveler are lucky to go to such places and take photos. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through pictures.

 

[Forkie]

Late for the party, but I couldn't resist a play too!

 

[sashbar]

1. the belance between the horse and the panoramic view is not right as far as I am concerned. Dave442 is correct, that was exactly my thought immediately. I would like to see a wider shot with horse further away Usually a subject is included in this kind of a panoramic view to underline the scale, so it must be relatively small. Here it is so big and too close, so it makes mountains look like toys.
2. this magestic panorama needs a similarly magestic horse I am afraid. It would be perfect if you coud look at it and think, my God what a panorama... my God what a horse.. or at least oh, and the horse is lovely.. Now, look at this poor creature, it is starved almost to death. Instead of looking in awe at the mountains, I look at the horse thinking why does it look like a Nazi concentration camp prisoner? It can hardly stand.
3. The exposition is alright and I do not even want to talk about this boring stuff, you know it all. One thing I would do, I would change the grass colour slightly, it is too yellow, does not match the upper part of the photo. I do not know of you have the color tools. And I do not know if it will be better, but it is worth trying if you want to keep the image.
Oh, yeah, and probably put some makeup on the horsey as well

 

[limr]

I don't agree about the horse. This is a mountain horse in the mountains - in other words, she's perfectly suited to the task of being in a picture of mountains. Plus, I think she's beautiful.

 

[annamaria]

I like yours and designers the best.

 

[Raj_55555]

The photo is beautiful but I do agree about the crop. You and the Traveler are lucky to go to such places and take photos. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through pictures.

I will admit that I consider myself lucky in that regard, living in India really gives a lot of opportunities. Don't let that stop you though, once a year is quite possible I'd say for most people.

Thanks a lot @Forkie , I think you got the horse exposed correctly. Do you happen to remember the exact steps?

I like yours and designers the best.

Thanks a lot annamaria

 

[Raj_55555]

1. the belance between the horse and the panoramic view is not right as far as I am concerned. Dave442 is correct, that was exactly my thought immediately. I would like to see a wider shot with horse further away Usually a subject is included in this kind of a panoramic view to underline the scale, so it must be relatively small. Here it is so big and too close, so it makes mountains look like toys.
3. The exposition is alright and I do not even want to talk about this boring stuff, you know it all. One thing I would do, I would change the grass colour slightly, it is too yellow, does not match the upper part of the photo. I do not know of you have the color tools. And I do not know if it will be better, but it is worth trying if you want to keep the image.
Oh, yeah, and probably put some makeup on the horsey as well

I agree with both the points, I think I learned a lot of lessons with this photograph and the interactions in this thread. I'm pretty sure I can do better next time

2. this magestic panorama needs a similarly magestic horse I am afraid. It would be perfect if you coud look at it and think, my God what a panorama... my God what a horse.. or at least oh, and the horse is lovely.. Now, look at this poor creature, it is starved almost to death. Instead of looking in awe at the mountains, I look at the horse thinking why does it look like a Nazi concentration camp prisoner? It can hardly stand.

I don't agree about the horse. This is a mountain horse in the mountains - in other words, she's perfectly suited to the task of being in a picture of mountains. Plus, I think she's beautiful.

This is where I'll have to agree with Leonore, I am assuming you've never really been into horses that much and the general idea that you have about horses, extremely muscular and elegant, is from television or race horses. Wild horses don't train like horse athletes, and hence don't have any need for those extra muscles. Most wild horses have a little bulging stomach and can be a bit bony depending upon the terrain.

Remember, real horses have curves!

 

[sashbar]

1. the belance between the horse and the panoramic view is not right as far as I am concerned. Dave442 is correct, that was exactly my thought immediately. I would like to see a wider shot with horse further away Usually a subject is included in this kind of a panoramic view to underline the scale, so it must be relatively small. Here it is so big and too close, so it makes mountains look like toys.
3. The exposition is alright and I do not even want to talk about this boring stuff, you know it all. One thing I would do, I would change the grass colour slightly, it is too yellow, does not match the upper part of the photo. I do not know of you have the color tools. And I do not know if it will be better, but it is worth trying if you want to keep the image.
Oh, yeah, and probably put some makeup on the horsey as well

I agree with both the points, I think I learned a lot of lessons with this photograph and the interactions in this thread. I'm pretty sure I can do better next time

2. this magestic panorama needs a similarly magestic horse I am afraid. It would be perfect if you coud look at it and think, my God what a panorama... my God what a horse.. or at least oh, and the horse is lovely.. Now, look at this poor creature, it is starved almost to death. Instead of looking in awe at the mountains, I look at the horse thinking why does it look like a Nazi concentration camp prisoner? It can hardly stand.

I don't agree about the horse. This is a mountain horse in the mountains - in other words, she's perfectly suited to the task of being in a picture of mountains. Plus, I think she's beautiful.

This is where I'll have to agree with Leonore, I am assuming you've never really been into horses that much and the general idea that you have about horses, extremely muscular and elegant, is from television or race horses. Wild horses don't train like horse athletes, and hence don't have any need for those extra muscles. Most wild horses have a little bulging stomach and can be a bit bony depending upon the terrain.

Remember, real horses have curves!

Yes, they try to use this argument with female models, but somehow fail time after time

 

[fjrabon]

I had a few issues with the shot (though I still think it has some things going for it as well)

1: it's unbalanced. To me this is where people mess up rule of thirds. Rule of thirds is about creating dynamic balance, ie not purely half and half. But you still need a balancing element on the other side of the frame of some sort (in some cases implied movement or an eyeline can even serve as that balancing element). Here the horse is looking down and mostly stationary. So there's nothing from the horse to help with the balance. The background actually compounds this issue, since the mountain peak is also right above the horse. The image feels left side heavy. In cases like this I feel that rule of thirds can actually hurt more than help intermediate photographers. They think "okay, gotta follow this rule" without really thinking about (or knowing about) where it came from.

My advice for rule of thirds, and frame selection in general is always ask "why am I putting this here" and if the answer is simply "rule of thirds" I need to come up with something better than that.

2) There's just enough depth of field to want more. The mountains in the background are just sharp enough to want them to be completely sharp.

3) The ratio of horse to background is slightly off. I saw some mention of using a wider angle. Remember wider angle would have made the horse BIGGER and the mountains SMALLER. You'd see more mountains horizontally, but they'd look stretched out and puny, not towering and majestic, and the horse in relative comparison would seem even larger. Wider angles make perspective effects greater. You'd actually probably need a telephoto to make the horse smaller and the mountains larger. If you want to shoot mountains with a wide angle, you need to be pretty close to them. Otherwise they can look like rolling hills and not mountains.

4) The coloration is just, I don't know, weird. I think it's because in high altitudes the sky is actually bluer and darker, which threw off the camera's auto white balance and gave the image this sort of ruddish tint.

As far as post went, here's what I thought:

18346651765_9f22d6d9bd_o by Franklin Rabon, on Flickr

 

[limr]

Yes, they try to use this argument with female models, but somehow fail time after time

What the hell?

 

[scooter2044]

The photo is beautiful but I do agree about the crop. You and the Traveler are lucky to go to such places and take photos. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through pictures.

I will admit that I consider myself lucky in that regard, living in India really gives a lot of opportunities. Don't let that stop you though, once a year is quite possible I'd say for most people.

Thanks a lot @Forkie , I think you got the horse exposed correctly. Do you happen to remember the exact steps?

I like yours and designers the best.

Thanks a lot annamaria

I haven't been out of state in 12 years.

 

[FITBMX]

It is a great shot, and you have gotten a lot of really nice editing ideas!
But I thought it looked really good right from the start!

 

[Raj_55555]

It is a great shot, and you have gotten a lot of really nice editing ideas!
But I thought it looked really good right from the start!

Thanks man!

1: it's unbalanced. To me this is where people mess up rule of thirds. Rule of thirds is about creating dynamic balance, ie not purely half and half. But you still need a balancing element on the other side of the frame of some sort (in some cases implied movement or an eyeline can even serve as that balancing element). Here the horse is looking down and mostly stationary. So there's nothing from the horse to help with the balance. The background actually compounds this issue, since the mountain peak is also right above the horse. The image feels left side heavy. In cases like this I feel that rule of thirds can actually hurt more than help intermediate photographers. They think "okay, gotta follow this rule" without really thinking about (or knowing about) where it came from.

I don't really think that I've got to follow the rule, but I've also never thought about balancing the photograph the way you've explained, so that's one lesson I learned today. I'll keep it in mind fjrabon, thanks a lot!

2) There's just enough depth of field to want more. The mountains in the background are just sharp enough to want them to be completely sharp.

How can I work on that? Do you mean something like focus stacking?

BTW I really liked your edit, I couldn't make it work in B&W but this one does it IMO. Did you burn the sky?

I haven't been out of state in 12 years.

Now is as good a time as any