I confess that I'm shamefully lax when it comes to writing blogs but I've had so many people asking me how I created my image The Brotherhood, That I'm taking to me keyboard to have a go at explaining.
This image has so far been my most successful competition images, having been accepted into 11 British Photographic Exhibitions (BPE's), winning 4 awards, has done well for me in my local Photographic club, Wrekin Arts, and most recently a gold award with the National Photographic Society.
It is a composite created by cutting out the four horse images from a set of photos taken on a photography portfolio day with EJ Lazenby, in a beautiful rural setting South Shropshire.
For anyone wondering what a portfolio day is, It's similar to a workshop in that the 'models' be they human or equine, are styled, and the concepts are created by the organiser but no tuition is given, so its up to you to sort out camera settings, angles, lens choice etc...
These are the images I chose to make up my 'herd':
I must have taken dozens and given that the light was fading, I wasn't too optimistic they would even be useable. These were taken with a 70-200mm f2.8 Nikon lens, shutter speed 1/800sec, f5.6 at no less that 1600 ISO! Thankfully my trusty old D750 works well in low light and running the images through Topaz Denoise rescued them.
Each image was colour corrected, and had ropes cloned out before being masked out and applied to a plain background in photoshop.
Here is a short video showing how the different layers were put together. (27 I think and please don't judge me for not labelling them all- when I'm in the zone that all goes out of the window!)
I think I was having a lucky masking day when I put this together as Photoshop made a really good job of it without me having to tweak it too much. All texture layers and brushes were handmade by me. (Texture layers are available in my Etsy store)
Thank you to Mia Rodley, handler of the beautiful Vendeval,
and to Jane Lazenby for organising and leading the photography day.
The Brotherhood: Awards & Acceptances
2023 Smethwick International (Colour PDI) Selectors Medal
2024 Beyond Group (General Colour) Selectors medal
2024 Midland Salon of International Photography (Colour )
2024 Winchester National (Creative ) Certificate Of Merit
2024 Neath & District PS UK Salon (Creative)
2024 Robin Hood Open (Creative)
2024 Rushden Open (Creative)
2024 South Birmingham Exhibition (Open Colour)
2024 VECC Photo Exhibition (Experimental)
2024 Clay Cross (Creative) Commended
2024 Southport National Open Exhibition (Open Colour)
2024. National Photographic Society Gold Award
2024 Studio Masters Highly Commended
2024 Salon Fotografia De Zaragoza (Creative) Gold Medal
If there is anything you would like to ask regarding this kind of image, please feel free to drop me an email. I'm always happy to share any info that might be helpful to fellow photographers.
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