on fire, a photo from Massachusetts, Northeast

Photographer's Note

OCTOBER... definitely my favorite time of the year!...

LARGER SIZE is available on flickr. the image does look much better in 1400 pixel format and full jpeg quality.

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POST-PROCESSING: practically nothing; just slight curves adjustment for extra clarity and i even had to reduce opacity of the curves layer for the background colors were jumping out too much; resizing to TE format; unsharp mask + frame. unfortunately, the colors were so rich that i had to considerably reduce the jpeg quality to squeeze it into 300 kb. as a result, the colors here are quite muted compared to the original.

WORKSHOP: a different view with the same 'actor' showing off

fulvio52, rigoletto, belido, Floydian, dareco, gunbud, zeca, Atousa, jorgi, steliosk, avene, wishlist, Wanda1 has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

fulvio52 (8314) 2008-10-08 10:23

Hi Kristaps,
never mind the compression, it's something we all unfortunately got to put up with. And 300 kb are always better than 200 anyways.
Love the framing, love the autumnal colors, love that beautiful mustang... I look at this and I think about... FREEDOM!
LOVE IT!

The Don.

tiagoalmeida (1475) 2008-10-08 10:32

hello,
great shor with good colours and a wonderful horse.
congratulations
tiago

pboehringer (770) 2008-10-08 10:32

Kristpas,
what kind of talk is that? Considerably reduce the JPEG quality? You're not shooting RAW? Why did you get LR2? Man, you have to switch to RAW.
Is this one of your getting up early and do some shooting prior to go work? Nice! I would love to have that kind of environment to do a quicky prior to go to the office.
Peter

jemaflor (147128) 2008-10-08 10:53

Hi Kristaps,
Very nice light for this view, lovely tones and perfectly composed. Intresting scene with this dymanic horse, good result.

belido (19934) 2008-10-08 10:59

Hi Kristaps,

beautiful nature photography. I also find the autumn colors marvelous...a pity we don't have this on the Tropic of Capricorn. The animal is right placed in the image and his pose makes the scene dynamic. The black framing forces us to make a horizontal reading, you did a succesfull choice on that. Despite the framing, I prefer the one in the ws. The position of the horse in relation with the sun is better in the ws version. Did you use the same sharpening process for both images? The quality of that in the ws is superb. Two great shots!
Regards,
Carlos

dareco (17136) 2008-10-08 12:05

The lighting has really turned this into an awesome image. I love the colors!! Great work! TFS

chris04stop (6805) 2008-10-08 13:45

A great pic. I love that wonderful colors of autumn and the strong body of the horse. A photo full of force and sweetness in the same time. Bravo.
Anna Paola

gunbud (34066) 2008-10-08 19:01

Hi Kristaps,
This marvelous horse is seen in great muscular detail and he frolicks among the brilliant autumn colors.
Wonderful bit of New England glory.
Regards, Tom

zeca (19762) 2008-10-08 19:10

Beautiful composition with the horse and the autumn colours, Kristaps. The light is very good and well measured. Nice framing.
Regards,
Zeca

Atousa (7131) 2008-10-08 22:31

Salam Kristaps,

Colors of autumn are really fascinating n I think autumn gives the opportunity to see the rainbow colours not only in the sky but almost everywhere! ..this shot is also beautiful n well framed specially with the inclusion of the horse ..the other photo in the WS is also great and because of its very natural colours n more clarity of the horse , I even like it more..thank you
Greetings, A

mauro61 (53429) 2008-10-09 0:31

ciao Kristaps,
Ottimo scatto con una bellissima inquadratura.
L'omogeneità di colori fra la natura e il cavallo è la cosa che mi piace di più.
saluti
maurizio

rigoletto (34279) 2008-10-09 2:16

Hi Kristaps,
Indeed the burning tones of red and other pastel tones of autumn make a very nice color palette. The beauty of the horse is another story. It is almost mimicing the environ.
Rgs,
Deniz

jorgi (3810) 2008-10-09 2:55

Hi Kristaps,

when i saw this one i immediately thought of a Cowboy Junkies song Horse in the country...

"The money would be pretty good
if a quart of milk were still a dollar
or even if a quart of milk were still a quart
And the hours, well, I don't mind
how they creep on by like an old love of mine
it's the years that simply disappear that are doing me in

Guess I married too young,
yeah, nineteen was just too young,
but sometimes you meet someone
and your guts just burn
It's not that I don't love him anymore
it's just that when I hear him
coming through that front door
my heart doesn't race like it did once before

But I've got a horse out in the country
I get to see him every second Sunday
He comes when I call him,
yeah, he knows his name
One day I'll saddle up
and the two of us will ride away

This weather I could almost stand
if the sun would shine a little brighter
or even if the sun would shine at all
But lately it just seems to me
that this life has lost its mystery
and these cold fall mornings seem to bite
just a little bit harder

And all my friends have settled down
become their mothers and their fathers
without a sound
Except for Cathy,
she bought a one-way subway ticket
and left us all behind

But I've got a horse out in the country
I get to see him every second Sunday
He comes when I call him,
yeah, he knows his name
One day I'll saddle up
and the two of us will ride away

This town wouldn't be so bad
if a girl could trust her instincts
or even if a girl could trust a boy"

Sorry to spam you like that but I really like the lyrics as they talk about fall to, fall of life. So you see, you captured such a wonderful moment. A moment that does wonders for me.

I read some of topics about the lost quality...Yp this can quickly happen. 2 months ago I finally bought LCD monitor. And then take a look at my gallery. I won't do that ever again! It was dreadful. Now I do have more control over captures since i can compare the photo on LCD and CRT monitor. But i feel this is not your problem. What I usually do is that I do all corrections at real size and when I'm satisfied I apply some smart sharpening. With smart sharpening you have so much more control. Then I resize image in edit menu...image size. I never use "save for web". When I'm done doing that i return to smart sharpening to get that final punch. Some images (like yours) need more inbetween steps since it is all about tiny details. And yes, Nikon d300 RAWS are understoond only by CS3 :) I do appologaze (if you already know all this) for congestion.

Kind regards,
Jeri

Floydian (30970) 2008-10-09 6:25

Hi Kristaps,
Funny to read hoe Peter is pushing you to use LR2...seems i really convinced him in using that tool ;-) But he is right, it's the only to go...shooting in raw.
Also reading that you had problems with the compression and the loss of detail in the trees and on the colours...compression problems.
The colours you have here are always a problem wehn reducing file size, just as leaves and small trees, they loose a lot of detail after reducing the size. You should consider in sharpen less on the trees (not the horse) and reduce size in smaller steps than all at once. Reducing 500px at the time will give you a bit more detail, but have to admit these colours are very difficult to show all their beauty on TE size.
Saving for the web is a good idea, i also do that, but when you have real problems with the 300kb barrier you should consider tu upload a smaller picture...
Take care, Henk

[2] +

alexisborel (755) 2008-10-09 6:51

Hi Kristaps
and thanks for your critic.
Colors really give feel of autumn with this range from yellow to purple red. Inclusion of a horse in the same tone give a real life sensation. You were right to put it on a side than in center, giving same priority to background colors.
Have a good day

Alexis

zeynepe (0) 2008-10-09 7:23

Hi Kristaps,
You are exactly right about the jpeg quality of this shot due to the rich colors, I also have that kind of problem.
However superb I like the harmony of colors between the horse and the nature...
Superb composition,
Congrats and have a nice day,
Zeynep

Gerrit (62042) 2008-10-09 10:16

Hi Kristaps,
beautiful colors in the trees and a perfect capture of the tension of this beautiful horse.
Excellent composition,.
Regards, Gerrit

JorgeCK (2620) 2008-10-09 13:05

Hi Kristaps,
I agreed with you that October is one of the best month of the year. Excellent framing and beautiful the warm colors.
Congratulations
joRge

Waylim (25436) 2008-10-09 18:34

Kristap,
This size is good enough to enjoy but the size is flickr is certainly a bonus. But if we can upload larger image, can you imaging how much slower this site will be. I think since they allow 300 kb, it slow down quite a bit. this is a great image with beautiful warm tone and autumn colors, the horse is a bonus and object to anchor our view and draw us in. Thanks,
Way

steliosk (4802) 2008-10-10 17:38

Hey Kristaps, this is a very pretty capture you're sharing. I love horses, its great animals, however I hadn't a chance to take pictures of them.

I have a couple of comments to add for your post here.
first the background colour is a bit distracting since your scene is very warm. Perhaps a colder WB might help you out on that, or some desaturation on everything except your main subject which is the horse.
The second one has to do with your DOF here. I'd prefer a shallower DOF, but I think your scene is wide angle and the DOF can't be as shallow as you wanted it to be.
Best way might be to use a wider range, lets say 60-80mm, but that would make your horse bigger, and the background smaller. That could be possible for you although if you had time to step back and make the horse have the same size as now, but that couldn't be possible since you wanted to capture it on the move towards you, unless if you run away focus and shoot which is quite difficult, and not guaranteed that it will be perfect!.

Worry not though! there is a way of crating a shallow DOF in such cases. Try the blur tool in PS over a duplicated layer to give that pseudo shallow DOF feeling at the top back.

Cheers my friend
Stelios

Wandering_Dan (3449) 2008-10-11 13:29

Hi, Kristaps -

Nice to see what you look like, finally - thanks to your vampire!

Beautifully done here, strong shadows and colors, and the horse is nicely positioned in a "thirds" spot. As Fulvio said, JPEG compression is something we all have to put up with, and it's not that bad here.

Best,
Dan

Burberry1 (6041) 2008-10-12 5:01

Beautiful photo, great timing and adequate title!!

Regards, agnieszka

Greg1949 (9011) 2008-10-14 6:26

Kristaps, this is another fine shot from your trip, I sure hope that the next time I shoot with you and Kristine that we have such good weather and photo ops, this is great.

Greg

nirvana73 (0) 2008-10-14 7:52

Hi Kristaps,
Very nice light
very nice autumn colors
beautiful horse and composition
tfs
regards
Ozhan

marietom (34611) 2008-10-14 9:12

wouaw, Kristpas !

Le cheval est assorti aux couleurs du paysage, magnifique, cette image !
Bonne soirée
Marie

avene (12675) 2008-10-15 7:49

I guess I'll have to spend some more hours this evening performing magic over the PC and ScanDisk, and get the shot with the white horse ready for posting here.
the intense light together with the dominant red colour does create impression of fire, and the pose of the horse that conveys the barely contained energy certainly adds to the dynamism of the scene. nice, very nice.

hugs,
K.

marcan44 (6315) 2008-10-15 14:45

Hi Kristaps,
The red color of autumn and the horse running, for a moment I felt it was really a fire in the woods!
Nice shot
Compliments
Best regards
Mario

wishlist (4133) 2008-10-22 13:23

Hi Kristaps,
I had a look at the large size posted on flickr and I agree with you, as it looks terrific. Excellent compo with the horse well placed in the frame but what I like the most are the incredible intensity of the colous which really shines off the frame. Even if you had some problem in resizing for TE the picture is very pleasant to look at. Thanks for sharing it and have a great evening.
Regards,

Igor

Wanda1 (15142) 2008-10-23 21:34

Hi Kristaps,
The rusty colour of the horse matches the rusty colours of some of the foilage in all their beautiful autumnal colours. He is placed well off centre in the cmposition and I like that he is facing you directly. Lovely light too washing over the whole scene. Pretty!
Regards
Wanda