Photo taken at the Indio Rodeo National Finals. Image brightness and contrast adjusted using photoshop 7.0
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Views since voting: 1046 Views during voting: 320 Comments: 9 Favorites: 0
There is a lot of potential here. You were in a great place to get a good cowboy shot. I just think you could have gotten a much better scene where you could see the faces and the poles weren't so much in the way.
This would be a good action shot but it is a bit too busy. Now the cowboy and the horse ARE in the center of the composition which signal that they are the main subjects BUT there are other elements that detract the eye's focus away from them. The cowboys sitting on the sidelines behind the rider and the people in the stands & and other cowboy on horseback in the upper right hand portion of the photo. I know that it may have been difficult given that you had to stay where you were seated but a composition which showed the front of the horse and rider would have been less busy. It would have been cropped or zoomed in close so that the horse and rider dominate or fully fill the composition. Taking the composition as it is here you could have cropped closer to the main rider to chop out those two cowboys on the left - that would help strengthen it and make it less busy. The other suggestion is that you may have had time to take the shot (before he burst from the stalls) to wait for that cowboy on horseback in the top right to get out of the frame. That too would have helped make the scene a little less busy. There is also something odd about the post-processing because there are strange blotches on the sleeve on your main subject and the body of the horse. Just working with the composition as it is now it would have greatly improved the photo if you had captured more of the face of this cowboy. His face is too hidden. Faces and facial expressions add visual interest and that would have helped this photo.
Too contrasty on the white parts of the horse. Really like the framing that includes the rodeo name at the bottom right corner. Want to see something of the cowboy's face. The guy in the upper right doesn't seem distracting, but adds interest to the photo.
A little bit of motion blur it looks like, and somewhat overprocessed. Wondering why you didn't use an action shot after he left the gate - that would have been sweet! Good luck.
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