Ride

Particularily interested in opinions of rendering the animal as a

shape with little tonal detail, but all comments welcome. Thanks for

making the time to look and comment.

nice job achieving your objective, but i would like to see a little more contrast between the bull and the ground to make ths shape pop more.

Action shots are difficult. The subject moves quickly and perhaps you have to be in a seat without possibility of moving to get a better frame. Perhaps here it is the problem. You got the action very well but your point of view is not pleasing to the subject. You are too high what makes the fight between the cowboy and the animal insignificant. The bull merges with the floor and we cannot see the cowboy's face. For sure it would have added a lot more of'drama' to the action.

Oscar's comment was very helpful to my understanding my reaction to the picture. The sense of a man riding a bull is not there, because we can't see the man's face. And the bull is very dark, and the ground is very uninteresting, and there is a lot of it.

 

Its interesting how such an interesting moment of action can be so hard to translate into 2 dimensions.

I agree about the perspective comments: looking down on that bull makes it less impressive than it is in reality. The picture is also a little bit dark with rather little saturation, only after levels adjustment in photoshop I could see that the feet, the tip of the tail and the snout are cut off, which at least shows that despite of all the action you managed to frame the cow (sorry bull:) as good as possible. Sensia II 400, being pretty close to Provia 400F as far as I know, should be pretty saturated and I suspect a problem scanning a dense slide here. Anyways, I just read a short article on photographing car races and one thing probably applies to rodeos as well: Getting close is key.

Thanks for your comments.

The dark rendition was a choice. The idea received some approval for imparting a "heroic" quality to the cowboy in this photo (where it wasn't as much a choice), but I am obviously not using it appropriately here.

As mentioned, the perspective and amount of background is also quite a liability in this one.

I do thank you for your comments, as they are a tool for learning.

Hi Wayne, the major difference between this photo and the other you just referred to, is that the latter is all vague, motion blurred and mysterious. That arouses the imagination (although my monitor might be off, because I can't see much) and translates both rider and bull to the general archetypes of hero and fury. On the other hand, this photo is clean, so perhaps we can see too much. Like his shoe, which since I noticed really bothers me, or the ground. Much of it's mystery, movement and tension is lost. And I really wish the other guy wasn't there.

 

But it is a good effort. I for one haven't dared to have a go at real action (my manual focussing is way too slow and inaccurate!). And I'm not sure the angle is a liability, since it gives the rider more prominence but no identity. A bit more drama (and less of the shoe and the other guy) and it's a great shot!

I actually like the overhead perspective. The position of the bull and the rider's outstretched arm obviates the need to see the riders face in order to ascertain what is going on IMO.

This works much in the same way as Berhards "No Face" pic. However, I agree with Darin about the contrast issue.

Whether this picture is a "success" depends on what your objective was. It's certainly a good rodeo shot -- faceless rider, bull as a dark, large, evil shape, yet subdued by the good rider, as evidenced by his firm seating and right arm position. It's impact is significantly lessened by the dark background and the other guy. Printing it a touch lighter might or might not improve it, but try it out.

 

Your other picture, 'Fury', I find stunning.