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Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Country Life III (Basic Editing)
Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon MF Zoom-Nikkor 75-150mm f/3.5 E
Location: Maryland Countryside
Date: Sep 26, 2010
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 400
Shutter: 1/2000
Galleries: Animals, Rural
Date Uploaded: Sep 26, 2010

This is the first DPChallenge I've specifically gone out and shot for. I love the countryside, many of my favorite photographs are taken in just this setting.

To get the soft focus effect here, I spit on a demolished UV filter and twisted it until the front of the hrose was relatively in focus, but the rest was blurred.

PS
Curves
Lower Hue/Sat
USM

Prediction: 5.5

Statistics
Place: 77 out of 96
Avg (all users): 4.9087
Avg (commenters): 6.3333
Avg (participants): 4.4545
Avg (non-participants): 5.0229
Views since voting: 929
Views during voting: 352
Votes: 219
Comments: 4
Favorites: 0


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AuthorThread
10/11/2010 12:13:21 PM
Greetings from Critique Club

I pretty well understand what you were after here, the sense of misty, otherworldly enchantment of a pasture in the early light. I applaud your ingenuity in experimenting with the filter. And the image definitely meets the challenge, "Country Life".

The image as a whole, however, falls a little flat. Literally. There's no sense of luminosity, and what mostly works well with misty scenes is that sense of inner luminosity, that eerie, glowing light. So it was a good experiment, but in the end it didn't transcend, as it were.

Some other reasons why:

1: the composition is pretty static; one of the nice things about mist pictures is that they encourage a journey, visually, into the mist usually, and the very, very strong foreground anchoring of the horse precludes such a journey, there's no BG glow or light to pulse us deeper.

2: it's unfortunate that the horse's back is tangent to the fence line; crouching just a bit to make the shot would have solved this.

So, overall it's a pleasing shot but in the end it's nothing more than that, no wow factor, no sense of involvement or mystery.

R.

ETA: FWIW, I happen to have a mist shot with softness and sharpness, mist and luminosity, foreground and depth, all integrated reasonably well, if you wish to look: it's #4 in my portfolio. I have almost never pulled off a really nice mist shot, it is hard.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
09/30/2010 03:46:10 PM
kinda of a "dream" quailty to this would probably need to be nice and sharp to score well
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/29/2010 06:24:09 PM
I like this photo. Good job
  Photographer found comment helpful.
09/29/2010 11:20:33 AM
Beautiful the way the mist shrouds the horse and the background. Gives it a dreamlike feeling. Nice soft muted colors. 7
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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