The Horse

[Richard Unsworth]

Taken at Coto Donana a couple of days ago.

Lake Donana Southern Spain Andalucia Province.

The horses are left out to feed by local owners and walk out into the shallow lake.
The small town of El Rocio takes in 200000 !!! horses for one week in September; who cleans up lol!

Anyways a pulled down curve and unaltered bw filTer in CC was used


f20! 1/3200 iso 800 7D and 100-400

[Nancy Bell]

Lovely silhouette of the horse! All the sparkles add a great interesting dimension to image, making it so much more than a "normal" silhouette-type picture! I really like how the sparkles are distributed, less below the horse, very few in the stretch of grasses, and then the highest density in the bkgd. It makes a great progression of layers as well as easily taking your eye from foreground to bkgd. I would prefer those duck/gull silhouettes were not present, mostly those in front of the nose of the horse. You could crop some of those birds away by reducing the area in front of the horse. Very creative "seeing". Also interesting about the management of these animals.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Richard, this is unusual and very nice. I love the silhouettes and the sparkles very much. I can't tell if the upper silhouettes are on the water (although it looks like one is flying) but I like them as well - I like having to use my imagination. I think you could crop a sliver off of the bottom. I would leave the duck silhouette in front of the horse's nose and maybe remove the one on top and merging with the duck.

[Anita Bower]

The dark horse is a strong element that successfully competes with the bright spots in the background. I would clone out the ducks in the upper part of the image as they are ill-defined, leaving those aligned with the horses head. A creative image.

[Richard Unsworth]

Thank you for the comments

I have worked on the image, removed the worst of the ducks, sliver from the base, recropped - I like the 1/3 line it passes throught the dead centre of the horses belly now!

[Jackie Schuknecht]

I like the original post, but would evict the two ducks closest to the horses face. Love the sparkles and the horse in black:) Very creative.

[Diane Miller]

I like how the horse almost lookslike it was on dry land except that the sparkles show it to be shallow, clear water. Very nice!!

I prefer the RP because the BG isn't so busy.