B&W - getting ready to ride

Hey guys, I was wondering if you could give me some input on this photo. Right now I think it has too much contrast, but I'm not sure if it's worth working on(I do all darkroom work, so it could take awhile and I tend to be lazy :)) or not. Any thoughts?

My scanner also likes to throw in light lines sometimes ( I have no idea why!) and it looks like it did it on this, so please try not to notice it when critiquing, it's not on the actual photo. Thanks!

I am not sure there is much you can do to 'fix' this picture, as far as getting it to a more viewable image(have to talk to the more experienced photoshop people) however, you could go a little more extreme in your image and try to boost the contrast more. I did it in my corel paint shop pro X program and boosted just the contrast up to about 82 and I think it gave it a very neat effect. Would you allow me to post the image contrasted up?

Is there any info on the neg in the blown out areas (Hair and arm on left, horse's shoulder, Rider's leg)? If not it probably cannot be saved. It looks here like you got the exposure right for the back wall rather than the subjects.

It's hard to say with out seeing the negative, but I'd geuss you don't have much more detail in the highlights than what we can see here. The lighting was rather harsh. In this case you would need to underdevelop the negatives (looks like it's overexposed) to flatten the image out overall. Obviously it's too late for that.

I like the composition, though. If you think there is more detail in the highlights, try printing with a lower contrast filter or lower grade paper.

Good luck,
Paul

I like the composition and the contrast. It gives it a good look, but I think it is a little too much.
I pretty much agree with paul...although development of negs is always hard for 35mm, because if it takes awhile to go thru the roll and different lighting conditions have been encountered, it may work for one neg, but mess up others. I think if you used a different filter (grade of paper) you would take some of the harshness out.

I think you could make this image work, but I also don't think it is of the quality of some of you other work. Since your working in a darkroom, it may be more fun to work on another image than labor on this one...and to have fun is what this is all about. :D

Cheers.

Thanks for all the responses, I really think I'll just let this one fly. I'm actually making a board for someone and It's really important to me that it look good. I'll definitely leave this off. It sucks to give up on a photo, but i think I have a lot more promising ones in my archives...I hope :)

PT- You're so right about developing working for some photos and not for others. It really is a crapshoot sometimes even if you think you've done everything perfectly.

Chow- Feel free to mess around with it, I am curious how it might look all contrasted up.

I actually like this, it is really abstract, almost like a painting that is just giving the impression of what you are seeing. Let me know what you think...........

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...astedHorse.jpg

I think everybody has said what I would say so I won't be repetitive and repeat it but I think compositionally this is a great shot! It would work for me if there wasn't the lighting problems.

Good eye.

Jared

Chow - Not sure how much I like that. It could be because the purple tone to it distracts me a bit. But, hey, if you like it, it's all good :)

Jared - Thanks for the compliment.

I took everyone's advice and left the photo off the project I was working on. It turned out better than I thought it would and seemed to be a hit, so thank you!