The Horse and The Rider: Darren Gauciby
hotpastaComment by Gordon: Critique Club
Listening to: The Everyothers - Too Far
The first thing I notice is the quality of the light. Strong, directional light from the left of the frame, raking across the subjects, creating depth and shape. The next thing I see is the quality of the jockey's top, the silky feel that the light and highlights give it. The bright, white region of the leg draws my eye, then I flow through the scene, to the jarring lack of head.
I like the fact that both the horse and rider have had their head's cropped, hitting the challenge theme, twice. Taking it by the neck as it were. Overall, the shot has great flow, across the horse, the rider, along the legs, horses neck, and so on, then through into the out of focus background, with the riders, grounding the shot and giving it a real sense of the place. I think those background elements really help the shot and give it a lot more context.
Seeing the Flemington name on the horse also helps locate it well. Overall very successful at giving a great insight into the jockey, without having his face in the frame at all. Great stuff. The B&W processing works well too, detail where it's needed, blown out and good blacks where required too. Very enjoyable.
The only thing that I take issue with a bit is the selective blurring, particularly around the horse - it seems quite obvious but not consistent - e.g., the horse's haunches are sharp, but blur down the back - but not in a way that would make sense for a lens - least it looks wrong to my eye. Same with the horse's mane it goes from sharp to blurred, without a justifiable transition - same with the jockey's knee. In short, I think that could maybe have been handled more subtly.
I like the blur towards the top of the frame though - so maybe just a bit more care ?
Overall, I really enjoyed this shot - there's plenty of interesting things going on but they've been handled well. There's a great left to right then right to left flow through the scene, out towards the horses. Thanks for entering it!
Photographer found comment helpful.
