Moorland pony at sunset

[andrewaxford]

I

I was travelling home over the moors at sunset time and a group of pony and longhorn cattle were grazing near the road. I tried to use the strong sunlight to backlight the subject. What do you think? How can i improve it?
Thanks
Andrew

[Donald]

Well seen, Andrew.

How can i improve it?

I wondered about cropping it much tighter on the pony, to focus our attention much more on it rather than on what is around it as well.

[Mike Buckley]

I really like this low angle that you used. This is one of the few times I find myself disagreeing with Donald, but I also like the space around the horse because it displays the environment. If you want to provide more focus on the horse as he suggests, you could try applying a subtle vignette.

I like the way you composed the backlighting but I'm not comfortable with the style that you post-processed it. I'm not used to seeing such a dark orange color as the rim light around the edges of the animals. Perhaps that is saturated more than I'm used to seeing or like. I'm especially not used to seeing the dark layer outside the backlighting that is displayed especially around the cattle.

[Dave Humphries]

Wow, I like that Andrew.

I tend to agree with Donald, although I'm not sure which edge(s) he intended to crop from - I'd actually suggest losing the bright bits of cloud above the pony because your low shooting angle makes it seem taller. You might also stand to lose a tad from the left side, just removing the rear legs of the more distant pony and retaining those of the mid-distance one.

Regardless, that's very nice as it is.

[andrewaxford]

Thanks Donald ,Mike and Dave for your comments and suggestions. Mike had commented on the harsh outline and i think this came from trying to bring back too much detail( the animals all had long hairy coats which did give an actual halo). I have tried the crop and vignette and reduced the saturation a bit too. What do you think? Does it look better?

[davidedric]

You've had feedback from expert photographers, but I would like to offer an opinion. I think that your first image has a wow factor that the second has lost. I prefer a different crop. I would crop a little from the left as you have done, but then crop some from the bottom rather than the top, and keep the halos

[Mike Buckley]

I prefer everything about the first image except the harsh outline that I mentioned. I like in the second one that the black part of that outline is missing, which is one part of it that I objected to. I also prefer the color of the light in the outline in the second image.

I get the sense that you might be applying adjustments to the entire image. If I'm right that you perhaps have not yet developed the post-processing skills to apply adjustments selectively to various parts of an image and applying a particular adjustment at varied opacity in different areas of an image, it would be well worth your while to look into that.