Future Showjumpers: contemplating glories to come.
Whilst out with my walking group this afternoon we passed by the stud on the edge of the forest, where they breed horses for showjumping. One of our number knows the breeders and so we were invited to take a tour of the stables.
They breed showjumpers by artificial insemination or by frozen embryo implant. At two years of age they begin training and at four to five years of age they are sufficiently accomplished to command a high price. I fell in love with this pair.
The repeating patterns of the stable windows caught my eye. Okay, the horses caught it first, but those windows are wonderful as is the metallic finish this image appears to have. Fav!
Beautiful shot and gorgeous processing. Until I was 23 my life revolved around horses, specifically showjumpers and competition, and then I walked away from it all, but I sometimes wonder what if!
@bsheppard It's a sort of faux HDR look although this was just a single image. The effect is achieved by constricting the tonal contrasts in the image - pulling down the highlight areas and boosting the shadow areas and then boosting the 'structure' of the image by boosting the contrast in the mid-range. This image is double processed: I processed as above in Lightroom and then exported the image to Photoshop CC where I removed a grassy area at bottom right and a roofline and gutter at top right. I then exported the image back to LR in a different file format and reprocessed it to boost the high structure effect. I finished the image by desaturating it by about 30%. It's actually a lot simpler to do than it sounds!
Brilliant. Love this processing. It does sound complicated, wish I had the knowledge and the skills. How long did that take? When I did a basic digital photography course, instructor said he would never spend more than 10 minutes editing a shot.
@princessm It did indeed take about 10 minutes but I did two versions in that time, this one and a B&W one... I liked both but finally went with this one.
A lovely shot... I like the mirrored images of the two horses, the arches, the textures of the barn surfaces. I also appreciate the technical explanation on the processing side. Thank you. :)
The processing is great Richard. I've tried sporadically to become more able but no improvement to date. I love this image. The grey looks like he's part of the building the tones are so close! Amazing fav
I see you've worked your magic on this and its come out really well, I particularly like the tones/colours of this shot, the PoV and the subjects of course.
@frankhymus Thanks Frank - the structure is actually poured concrete; the texture you're seeing is that of the wooden shuttering that was used... and it was indeed that that I wanted to emphasize, so mission accomplished.
FAV
thank you! that makes perfect sense.