Race Day

[ash]

This is one from a recent visit to pontefract races, as I had never been to a race meeting before or taken a picture of a running horse, Ide like your comments please!
cheers
Ash.

[Josh Bear]

Re: Race Day

Hi

The picture is nice and sharp which is a good start for an action shot.

With that said I don't think the sepia treatment works well. Most jockeys wear very bright colours and it is these colours that would set them aside from the background. By using one tone all the elements sort of get lost in each other.


Hope this helps.

Josh

[ash]

Re: Race Day

Hello Josh

I was going for the oldy worldy authentic traditional raceday look
I just think some shots cry out for b&w or sepia and think this is one of them.
Rather than go for colour which is pretty the norm, I thought Ide do a something different.

You say 'by using one tone all elements sort of get lost in each other', don't really no what you mean by that, are you saying all sepia toned images are the same or do you just not like sepia?

thanks for your vague input and this is the normal shot from the raw file, its not been altered.
Ash.

[Josh Bear]

Re: Race Day

Apologies if you found the input vague I will try and be very specific. I

MHO the sepia treatment makes all the components of the shot merge together, the jocky's and their horses don't stand out from the background and as a result my eye doesn't quite know where to settle.

By using the colour of the Jocky's clothes it may be possible to create that settle point and distract the viewer from the fence. In the colour version you have posted the green of the grass is very dominating so I would probably tone that down a bit and see what it looks like then.

Finally the fence gets in the way, I recognise that you may have had no opportunity to remove it from the shot but perhaps a wider aperture with a focus point of the first horse may have blurred the fence more and again allowed the viewers eyes to go straight to the horses.

Best Regards

Josh

[ash]

Re: Race Day

Its pretty clear you like colour, and think the picture looks better in colour.

It was taken at f2 and the focus point is the big horse in the middle of the picture.

thanks
Ash.

[mib2]

Re: Race Day

Hi Ash
Reminds me of happy days - i love a day at the races and it captures the moment
Dave R

[peter]

Re: Race Day

I can see what you were after but I have to agree with josh it just does not work for me. It is the same way with motor sport you need to show the colours. In horse racing it is all about the jockeys where in motor sport it is about the riders,drivers and then the cars or bikes. The other thing is that as with motor sports I think you also need to show some sort of movement in the horses.

[jojo]

Re: Race Day

Hi Ash, yes, my first thoughts were, "olde worldy newspaper cutting" but, hey, that's what you were wanting to portray, so you achieved it. However I agree with Josh and Peter's comments and think it lacks a certain vibrancy and excitement the way you have portrayed it. My humble opinion, obviously

jo