A few more from the stables...

[CaraRose]

I think the one of Blue and Jay may have them slightly out of focus. I ran an unsharp mask but anything over .4 radius looked way too harsh.

[Chunk]

CaraRose, I'm enjoying your shots of all the horses. You've cought the light on the horses' coats real well in the last couple series. It's good that you capture them in their normal actions and poses.

Something that's dying out of the common language is the color descriptors for different horses. Would you mind using some of those (bay, roan, dapple, whatever) when you are showing photos? I come across the descriptors often in reading Dick Francis novels or historical fiction but never connect them to the right appearence in my mind, I'm sure.

[CaraRose]

Hey Chunk,

I'll be sure to state the colors from now on...

Both the horses in these pictures (Jay is in both, Blue is the second horse in the one with both of them) are bays. A bay is always a shade of brown with black points (points are muzzle, around the eye, legs, mane, tail). Within any one color there's a pretty vast color range. Jay is a blood bay (reddish brown), while Blue is a dark bay (dark bays will range from a darker brown to a near black). Shadow (who's eye I posted in another thread) is a good example of a dark bay which is near black. Accept in summer when his coat begins to bleach a bit, you often can't even tell that he's not a true black. If you look at the eye picture though, you can see how there's some brown in his mane.

Chestnuts tend to be in the redder shades than bays, and they do not have black manes and tails. They also come in various shades, from liver (extremely dark) to red to golden. A chestnut with a mane and tail of a lighter shade than its coat is a flaxen chestnut.

We don't have too many chestnuts, but below is a head shot of Cody, a school horse at our old stables, and my big boy Ivan. Cody is a red chestnut, Ivan is a gold flaxen chestnut.

[jar_e]

Personally, I enjoy your last two shots! The first one of your newest batch is just stunning and perfect colors and comp! Very well done. With your others one, there nice, yet I'm not a huge horse person, and find my eyes trailing to something else. Nice shots,

Jared

[opus]

The shot of Cody is a perfect horse portrait! I can see it as a poster, hanging on some little girl's wall. Great color, exposure, composition, timing! It works well with the very light gravel in the bottom quarter of the picture. Breaks the horizontal background into thirds, which contrasts nicely to the vertical lines of the horse.

[Chunk]

Thank you so much for the explanation. That's just the sort of thing I never knew.

[CaraRose]

Thanks all

The one of Cody I took... boy... let's see... I was a senior in high school, so it had to be 1998. I was taking a photography course at my high school, using my sister's 3xi. It was when I first really got into photography. I didn't have a scanner back then, so this was off a Kodak picture disk (back when it was still 3.5" floppies rather than CD's ).

The only thing I would change about that picture if I had the chance would to have taken the stud chain off his nose and just clipped the lead to the halter.

It's funny, actually... with all the time that past since I took this picture. My friend Patty and I took out quite a few of the school horses and took portrait shots. I got a really nice percentage of good shots from that shoot. We ended up putting up a bunch of enlargements in the clubroom, including this shot.

When we left the Meadows, they got packed up by my trainer and I think she intended to give them back to me, but they got lost in the shuffle of things along the way.

I dog/house sit for Aislinn (my trainer) a couple times a year, and two weeks ago I was dogsitting for the weekend. I was in their rec room watching TV, happened to look over and saw this 8x10 of Cody was up over on one of her shelves in that room along with several other pictures. It was nice to know it was still around.

[opus]

I know what you mean about wishing the chain wasn't on his nose, but honestly, I think the picture would be lacking somewhat without it. I love it as-is.