Cropping for action

All charm and tilted motion

I typically come down on the engineering side of the analysis vs artistic spectrum, and this manifests in my photography as wanting to see the whole scene: the entire horse and rider, the full pack of hounds, and so forth.  This is an artistic fault, I firmly believe.  I know this because, whenever happenstance intervenes and forces a moving target to be cropped in ways I would never have planned, I am often much pleased with the results.

When I stand too close to the action with a particular lens and try to get something useful anyway, the image is reduced to its essentials.  I don’t need to see the top of the rider’s head or the details of the horse’s legs to enjoy this shot. 

Classic closeup pose

The static shot of this same pair is pleasant, but the moving one is better.  With less clutter, the eye can focus on the parallel curves of the horse’s neck and the back of the rider’s coat, and the right-angle parallel curves of the horse’s body and lifted foreleg.  The tilt of that structural parallelogram keeps the action moving forward.

Well-prepared

It’s easy to get too fixated on big pictures of horses and riders and to miss the closeups that reveal personality.  We see nothing of this rider’s horse, but what does it matter?  Instead we see warm clothing defying the cold wind (earmuffs under the helmet), determination, and some well-packed liquid fortification.

Animal personalities

There are little scenes everywhere at a hunt.

Over here we have a horse seemingly wondering why the famous photographer doesn’t take his picture.

Over there we have a group of “American Gothic” hounds (actually Crossbreds & English), standing straight and upright.

Stiff & straight

Red, white, and blue

Below we can see a whole series of reactions to the threatened disciplinary action, as each small cluster of hounds moves to rejoin the pack waiting in line behind.  You can see that each of the guilty parties, if asked, would have an excuse to offer.

Regrouping in the rear

Variations on the classic shots

There’s nothing wrong with a fresh look at the conventional scenes of hunting.

Much-photographed pair

The huntsman posing for the famous photographer (Jim Meads’ 500th unique hunt) has planted himself firmly on sloping ground, and his horse stands straight and balanced.  All their concentration is on the photographer, but I prefer the profile shot.

Iconic

This foxhound sniffing along the terrace wall could hardly be better posed in front of our host’s farm sign.

It’s always nice to be able to include a “going home” shot.  Here the chilled riders are making their way down the endless lane anticipating a fine hunt breakfast.  The verticals of the bare winter trees are countered by the horizontal shadows on the ground, and the drift of the tails reminds us of the cold wind.

Going home

Closeup vs context

Profile for the camera

We were lucky enough to view three different foxes at this meet.  The third resulted in unusable photos but the first produced a long stream of (zoomed in) closeups and the second one, in almost the same spot, produced more distant shots.

Everyone likes a good closeup of a fox, of course.  With a big zoom lens you can often capture fox or rabbit shots like these, when you’re lucky and the stars align, and it’s a great day when that happens.  But that’s a hunting success (captured!) more than a photographic success; almost any shot of a fox or rabbit during a hunt would qualify as success, regardless of quality.

In the second shot, the fox was much further away and out of very effective reach of my lens.  This series of shots aren’t very good fox photos but they are much more interesting hunting photos.

Fox in context

Foxes are small, fast, and tricky.  Most importantly, they know their territory, and this setting highlights this.  The tree on the left is still living, vs the architectural stump on the right.  The fox cares about neither; it’s heading for the woods beyond the fence and the safety of the gullies.

The decisions of hounds

Every now and then you get to see hounds thinking.

The pack has come to the edge of a field with a gap to the next field.  A substantial group want to go up the near side of the hedgerow, but the rest disagree.  The pack divides hound by hound at the decision point.

Two choices

Take your pick

Individual decisions

Car followers

Sometimes you can capture amusing scenes of the stand-around-and-wait folks.

Following the action. Or not.

There’s not always a lot to see from the chosen hilltop, and what there is can be very far away.

Any meet is likely to throw together folks who know each other as well as strangers gathered for the day all trying to suss out the territory and stay as close to the action as possible.  There are introductions and chit chat.

Nothing much to do

Often there’s not a lot else to do.  Even the photographers can be stymied.  Bring a flask and make new friends instead of staring at the ground (lemonade for the small fry).

At least you can point out the highlights to your kids. Standing humans are tall and (relatively) thin linear objects.  The pointing arm and field edge are strong horizontals.

Vertical and horizontal

Overlapping lines

Standing on the paddock fences adds many more horizontal elements to the mix.  The staggered heights of the people helps tie it together in the same way that the staggered overlapping lines of twill weaving hold cloth together (over two and under two).