Carving up the space

Dominated by the curve of the pond

The curved edge of the pond in the first photo eats a nice semicircle out of the left of the scene.  That alone would make for a pleasing composition, but see also how the grasses curve with the pond, and so do the bodies and especially the tails of the hounds.  Everything reinforces that fundamental curve.

Gothic linear divisions

In the next photo, we have linear architectural elements made up unexpectedly of living creatures.

The accidental formal postures of the hound and the rider, aided by an almost straight horizon, create an inner rectangle and draw the eye into the open space in the back left.  Nothing is moving; all is potential.

Painting with light

Every now and then the gods cooperate and provide just the right lighting for a scene.

Running into the light

These hounds are running along the water into the morning sun.  The light paints both the foreground trees and the background field so the well-lit hounds are part of the scene, not separate.  Their movement is just a part of nature.

On stage

At a slightly different angle we see the huntsman in the center of the light while the backdrop behind him has darkened, setting him on stage.

The shadows on his horse help tie him a bit to the background, but he is somewhat apart from nature, set up as an actor upon it, appropriately for his role.

Radiant

In the third photo, we see how a (partially) white horse can suck up all the light.  Not even shadows connect the horse to the background setting.  This rider is not a primary actor upon nature, but a follower of the action.  It seems fitting that her horse is the most theatrical.

So, the hounds are part of nature, the huntsman acts upon nature, and the hunt member cheers them on.  The lighting becomes progressively more artificial, to match.

The eternal foxhunt

Everyone likes a good action shot, and photos of foxes are always welcome, but there’s nothing quite like those timeless scenes that foxhunting throws up.

Thus may it always be

When you look at the slope of autumnal woods with the oaks just beginning to turn and the worn down stone wall you can’t help making a wish that future generations will be in the same spot with the same view.

When you see the immaculately turned out whipper-in moving into position you want to capture the moment as part of a long continuum of similar actions by hunt staff for a couple of hundred years.

This particular shot caught the canter stride at its most calm point, and it’s that stability that makes it resonate backwards and forwards in time as a symbol.

In eternal motion

Nature vs architecture

Fox in the midst of architecture

The front gates of the Blue Ridge Hunt kennels have two lovely metal fox silhouettes mounted on top.  The kennel building is nothing but straight lines, of course: bricks, bars, shingles, and all the other architectural elements, but we get just that bit of nature which gives it personality.  Whenever we look at the kennels there are hounds behind the bars (this is their home), but the foxes run free along the top of the gates.

Architecture surrounded by Nature

In a more natural context, these two does disturbed by the hunting activity retreat past the barn.  The barn is aligned with and echoes the nearby Blue Ridge mountain that ascends behind it, but is dwarfed by it as well.

Though the lighting is attractive on the gable end of the barn, our eyes are drawn to the moving deer.

In both cases, it is the animals that are telling the story.

Photographer as part of the story

This is not stealth nature photography.  I’m standing around with a big old camera lens and drawing the attention of the subjects whether I want to or not.

A sideways glance

This isn’t always a bad thing.  The quiet look from this horse keeps us from just being observers.

Too bad I'm not invisible

In these two pack pictures, the second is much more interesting than the first.  The acknowledged presence of the photographer does nothing useful for the first picture.

In the second picture the huntsman is looking at the lead hound on the far right who is bounding ahead eagerly and about to earn a reprimand to stay closer to the rest of the pack.

Much better

On the other hand, sometimes drawing attention can give you a group portrait as the various subjects interact with the photographer.

Personalities

For example, both of the next shots have interest, but of a different kind.  In the second one, we get a parade of some of the hounds.  It emphasizes their unity as a pack, a tool for hunting.

In the first one, where the hounds look at the photographer, we see them as individuals, each with an opinion.

A pack

Difficult light

Lighting in difficult circumstances

Much of the hunting action had the car followers far from the invisible pursuits along the banks of the Shenandoah River.

When they returned, first staff and hounds and then field, they approached at length over wide fields with the bright sun at their backs, and this made for very trying photography.  We were treated to a view of a fox and some lovely hound action, but getting attractive pictures was next to impossible.

In such circumstances, it helps to just keep trying.  You can see from the picture that this whipper-in is riding into the sun, but happily I was able to get a somewhat lateral view of him, and enough of the slant of the body and horse’s head were illuminated to keep it from being a hazy blown-out silhouette.  As an added bonus, he was well framed between the gap in the trees.

There were many shots of this sequence that were unusable, but random chance can be your friend if you keep snapping away.

Can you spot the camouflaged hound leaning on the horse?

Lovely hounds

This was the first day of cubbing for the Old Dominion Hounds.

As sometimes happens, all the hunting activity took place off-stage, from the perspective of the car-followers.  We got to watch them leave and return, and in-between there was much appreciation of the lovely scenery and occasional faint echoes of hounds and horn.

Huntsman lecturing his hounds

At least there was much to admire in the presentation of the pack, polished in the sunlight and somewhat dazzled by all the people.  The early morning sun turned the pack into Apollo’s hounds: golden light and golden/red hounds.

The colors of the Old Dominion Hounds include brick-colored breeches.  Combined with the red ring-neck hounds and the huntsman’s vividly colored horse, it creates an amazingly harmonious color scene.  I understand breeding hounds for a consistent color, but just how did they get that horse to match?

Sitting at attention

Landscapes

Using the subjects to give scale to the landscape

When far from the action, or absent any action at all, one natural response is to turn to landscapes, especially since hunting often takes place in lovely surroundings.  The Old Dominion Hounds territory is in the Virginia Piedmont country, around the Rappahannock River.  The Blue Ridge Mountain dominates the western skyline, and closer outlier hills on either side of the river provide contrast.

It can be a challenge to make the vista that seems so impressive in person interesting as a photograph, absent special equipment and elaborate post-processing.

Folds and hills leading into the Rappahannock River valley

One approach is to make lemonade out of your lemons: if the subjects are too far away to be interesting in their own right, use them to give some scale to the overall landscape.  Then the folds of land and the haze in the atmosphere are pluses rather than minuses.  Don’t forget to boost the contrast enough to get some visible detail for the distant mountain.  In-between the near hills and the Blue Ridge Mountain in this photo lies the Rappahannock River.

Another technique is to highlight the landscape more indirectly, as background to your subject.  This conveys a sense of place without losing interest as just a static shot.

Blinded by the light

Blinding light

Photographically, the big technical challenge was the blazing early morning sunlight.

Uncontrollable shadows

There are some obvious responses to that situation.

First, go stand with your back to the light — not so easy when all the action faces the other way.  Don’t forget to keep your shadow, very long when the sun is low, from being visible in the middle of the shot.

Second, watch out for harsh black shadows right next to brightly lit items.  Some of this can be mitigated in post-processing by using a fill-light option, or on the scene with a flash, though it always seems so odd to use a flash in brilliant sunlight (folks look at you strangely).

On the other hand, the light can also be your friend, when everything lines up well.  It can make colors blaze, or create theatrical lighting effects.

Vivid colors

Theatrical spotlights

Illuminated distant subject

Trade-offs

Bright light creates some other problems with your camera settings.  If you’re not familiar with camera settings, there will be more articles later going into greater depth.

Four things control how much light creates the shot.

• The speed of the shutter.  The faster it is, the less light hits the receptor, and the more motion can be stopped.
• The size of the aperture.  The more open it is, the more light hits the receptor, and the shallower is the depth of field (area in focus).
• The sensitivity of the receptor (originally, of the film).  The more sensitive it is, the more spurious noise will be created, making the image dirtier.
• Filters added to the lens.  (Not discussed below).

At this stage in my photography, I am a fan of clarity.  For me, that means a fast speed, so that I can stop hounds and horses in action, and as much depth of field as I can muster so that both near and far subjects are in reasonable focus.  In addition, I don’t want a lot of “noise” in the solid areas, in other words, I want a low ISO setting (ISO refers to the degree of light sensitivity).  (Depth of field is also impacted by nearness and distance of subjects, telephoto lenses for zooming, and so forth – not covered here.)

To be specific, in an ideal world with perfect lighting I would want a shutter speed = 1/1250, a small aperture < f8 (smaller yields greater depth of field), and a low ISO (less noise).  There are, alas, no ideal worlds.  Typically I set the shutter speed to 1/1250 second, which reliably stops the movement of almost all hound and horse tails.  (In darker conditions, I’ll step that down all the way to 1/640 if necessary to let more light in, but paws and tails will begin to blur).  Then I set the ISO to Automatic and let the aperture default.  In a studio, or for a controlled shot, I could have more specific manual settings, but following a hunt, I have all I can do to not knock the shutter speed settings awry.  Adjusting a setting while whirling to shoot a fox is just about impossible.

For bright light conditions which should be perfect, I found the camera made decisions for the two varying settings that were not what I wanted.  There were unpublished photos in this essay that were brilliantly lit, but the camera chose to use a wide open aperture instead of decreasing the ISO number for greater light sensitivity.  The open aperture created a shallow depth of field, so for a typical picture with two horses together, one behind the other, there was an unpleasant focus problem with the more distant horse.  A manual setting could fix that, or an ISO setting of 100 (the most light sensitive) instead of Automatic would encourage a narrower aperture.  It’s time for me to move to purely manual settings.

This will be an exercise for me in the future, to control the settings more directly when the action gives me sufficient time to prepare.  That should result in fewer unsatisfactory shots, as long as I can remember to change the settings back afterward when necessary!