Archive for category Rappahannock Hunt

Photo Essay: Old Dominion Hounds (November 27, 2010)

This photo essay is posted at KLM Images.

Twist & turn

Zigzag

The eye of the viewer can be guided by actual lines in an image, or by implied ones.

These two riders are stacked up on a slanted hillside watching hunting in the lower field.  Your eye naturally follows them down starting at the rump of the near horse and then reversing at the lower one.  It’s possible the horses are standing still, but the placement of the legs and movement of the tails creates doubt, so you follow the potential movement left and then right, instead of just left along the hillside and out, as you might if the far rider were absent. Read the rest of this entry »

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Photo Essay: Rappahannock Hunt (December 11, 2010)

This photo essay is posted at KLM Images.

Landscapes

Stacked ridges ending in the Blue Ridge (HDR)

I am far from satisfied with my skill at capturing landscapes and am constantly experimenting for better results.

In this essay, I post-processed some of the images for high-dynamic range (HDR) contrast, so let’s look at the results.

Ordinary cameras are more limited in their ability to respond to contrast than the human eye.  We see very well in both dim light and blazing sunshine, but for a camera we must choose those conditions in our settings or be disappointed.  Depending on the settings, the camera decides to set the exposure to maximize the overall utility of the resulting image, but this reduces the range of absolute darkness and absolute brightness compared to our own vision.  The theory behind HDR is to take multiple versions of the same image with different exposure settings, then blend those together so that the overall exposure is much broader than the camera can capture on its own, and closer to what we actually see. Read the rest of this entry »

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Photo Essay: Rappahannock Hunt (September 12, 2010)

The photo essay is posted at KLM Images.

Before the meet begins

Arm & arm

While the iconic photos of foxhunting at the start of the meet involve hunt staff posed with their hounds ready to hunt, you can find many things of interest to look at well before that point, beginning with the hound trailer.

Whenever I meet a hunt for the first time, I try to be especially diligent about getting shots of the hounds.  I can’t capture their foxhunting abilities with a camera, but I can start to get a feel for their personalities and to identify some of the individuals.  Paying attention to the hound trailer is a good start.

Each hunt’s setup is a bit different, depending on the sort of trailer they use.  Often you are restricted to a view of noses through slits which, while amusing, is a bit limited.  In this case, the interaction between one hound and the huntsman captured some accidental symmetry. Read the rest of this entry »

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