Graceful. Beautiful… Sometimes.

My husband was helping me take some pictures of our horses this past weekend.  His job was to take care of our baby while I shot, and sometimes he was to chase them around to get them moving.

The lighting gets funky, and then I get to play with it on my computer.  I learn a lot through trial and error on Photoshop CS3, I learn through books, and sometimes from the Pioneer Woman.  The above photo I adjusted by using her “Hard Light” fix.  It worked well, and brought the highlights through the mane.

Here’s my little shorty telling my gelding (used to be stallion) who’s boss.  She’s only 14.1 hands or so, but she believes she can do anything and normally she’s right.  I didn’t do much to fix that photo above, but did try the hard light thing again and just lowered the opacity of my layer.  It’s okay, but the thing I like most is Annie’s body language.

And then there’s the classic pose that Etta is demonstrating above.  It’s lovely, peaceful, looking off into the distance… everything a horse should be.

And sometimes you get a shot that no amount of tweaking will fix.

Are ya sure you don’t wanna ride my one eyed zombie horse?