The final day of the Ironhorse CDE was Cones: “Cones can be likened to the stadium jumping phase of eventing. The object is to drive through narrowly spaced pairs of cones cleanly within time allowed. Each cone has a ball placed on top, and any miscalculation will dislodge the ball, thus incurring a penalty. This phase tests the fitness, agility and obedience of the horse and the accuracy and skill of the driver”. After the excitement of the Marathon, I knew it was going to be a challenge finding ways to make the horses look like they were moving at a good pace. I had not water to give a splash and the horses simply weren’t going quite as fast as the day before so, there wouldn’t be the big leg extensions. I also needed to get some shots with them actually going through the cones to show which event was in progress. I went vertical with a pair, zooming in tighter and getting them as they began a turn adding a sense of motion in their body angles and direction…
I switched back to horizontal to capture a team of four in hands coming through the cones. Shooting in continuous I was able to get a sequence where I chose the image that showed the most action through the horses body positions…
Wanting to get something different, I dropped low to the ground emphasizing the horse’s size and power as they came towards me…
I wish I could claim this great idea but, Steve came up with the idea of shooting just their legs. I deleted most of them but found a few where I liked the positions of their legs and the way they conveyed motion…
When the event was over all the four in hand teams came into the arena and lined up for the awards. It was quite an impressive site to see so many beautiful horses all dressed in their finest standing there so tall and proud. I wasn’t able to get them all in one frame…a pano may have been in order, something to think about for next time. For the final image I selected six of the dozen teams and composed the frame to include the great sky with puffy clouds and did a five stop bracket which I converted to an HDR using Photomatix Pro. With the bright light and everyone standing at attention I was able to make the five frame sequence with very little movement (hand held)…
I had a wonderful time and want to give JoAnn and Ron a very special thanks for inviting me to their beautiful home and property and for their hospitality. I felt so at home and enjoyed broadening my horizons all the while stretching my photographic skills to a new level. It was great having the student teach the teacher as JoAnn gave me instruction in what to look for in a good horse photograph, it’s the leg extension, the angle of the horses body, the flying mane, the splashing water and so much more that I was thinking of when visualizing the images I wanted to create. I learned a lot and in the process I came away with some images that I really like. I know I have more to learn and look forward to next time.
Images created with Nikon D3S, AF-S 70-200mm, TC-17E II, AF-S 24-70mm 2.8 on Lexar Digital Media
