Spring Sisters enjoying their paddock freedom
<—-Before After—–>
<—-Before After—–>
[twentytwenty]
[/twentytwenty]
Spring Sisters
I pulled over when I spotted these three horses on the crest of a snowy hill. The horses appeared to be enjoying their paddock freedom and were in a springtime mood. These three spring sisters somehow reminded me of the three horsewomen in my family (Nancy, Lori and daughter Megan). I was inspired to make an image of the four-legged subjects in the fading springtime snow.
The Technical Layer
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Technical: Camera Settings
Technical: How & Gear
This is a technical shot. This is a composition shot. It was also a handheld shot. The technique is known as image harvesting for extended dynamic focus. The gear for this shoot is a Nikon D4s with the 70-200f/2.8 w/Tc1.7. To begin with, I decided to use the fencing post to frame the subjects. The horses were about eighty feet away. I set my aperture to F/14. Here is the tricky part. I selected and then spotted my focus point on the horses. Next, you put that focus point on the near fence and engage focus. Hold the focus to the fence. Then recompose to the horses. Finally, take an image of the fence, release focus, then refocus on the horse, take an image.
At this point, you have harvested a focused near image, the fence, and a focused far image, the horse. In the digital darkroom, you combine the images on separate layers. The photoshop techniques are also technical because you have to remove the depth of field blur.
Technical: Location & Inspiration
The warm weather and sunny sky created the spring fever inspiration for the horses and myself. It was good to travel and head outside to wander the back roads once more. This southward facing location of this hill was side-lit, so the sun was not fully reflecting the snow. The was enough light radiating from the snow to help illuminate the underside of the horses. The fence was also in snow, so it was not in full shadow.
Technical: Craft
In photoshop the near and far images were composited, and it was apparent that I had a graphic image. The fence and white snow and a slice of blue sky combined to make a picture that could go into many directions. I decided to keep it in its simplest form. However, those photoshop plugin results took this graphic into hundreds of compelling avenues.
