Assignment #18, Pet Portraits

Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 56 Location: Rising Sun, MD

I've been wanting to do this one for a while with my Corgi, Argus, but sometimes different opportunities present themselves. It's dark when I get up to leave for work, and well past dark by the time I get home, so most outdoor photography is on the weekends for me. We had quite a rain storm last night, so I wasn't exactly sure what the weather was going to be like today...beautiful, partly cloudy and close to 60. The ground is still pretty soft and muddy, but I went into the horse pasture anyway.

The lighting just kept getting better and better as the sun started going down, but the horses decided they wanted to stand in the shade to make my life more difficult on purpose. I really wanted to take a picture with front light, but they didn't seem to like the idea so much and didn't follow me out into the middle of the field. They didn't decide to walk out into the sun until after I had shut the gate and started walking away. I've been avoiding side light and back light because it's a little harder for me, but I think the side light came out ok for this one. The one thing I don't like, is the horse on the left, Summer, decided to move her head to the right and which put most of her neck in a shadow.

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 8:59 pm

Nice lighting.

Yes the last horse's face is lost in the shadow/dark markings of the other horse.

Try posting this shot in one of the digital forums and ask how they would approach this. You can probably resolve this in PhotoShop.

Nice shot.

Joined: 25 May 2004 Posts: 56 Location: Rising Sun, MD

I decided to try it with backlight...it's a lot harder than I thought it would be.