Icelandic Horse

[tundratantrum]

This horse belongs to Ed Iten a local dog musher who is at this moment running the Iditarod. These horses are so shaggy and cute. They have such beautiful eyes and faces and that is what I wanted to capture here. This is the original un-processed photo. All I did was crop a bit.

<a href="http://s149.photobucket.com/albums/s63/tundratantrum/?action=view&current=2-29-08eds5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s63/tundratantrum/2-29-08eds5.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

EXIF
90mm
f/5.3
1/125
ISO-800

My questions:
1. Is this photo too blown out looking? I have another version of this photo which corrects the exposure a bit but seems to lose that soft portrait-like quality of the original.

2. I like the horse in the background as it seems to give a nice depth of field, only I wish there wasn't a shadow across it's face. Does the background horse work? Is it distracting?

Thanks,
Cathy

[windrider86]

I think the problem is, the overxposed background. Its far to bright and very distracting.
The horse inthe back to me, is fine but again, its all the overblown whites that bother me.
You mentioned you have another one thats darker, but you mentioned it has lost some of that soft look, how are you pat post processing and what program are you using?
as you can soften it up a bit if you are partial to that look. I might suggest tho that in doing so you may want to leave the eyes sharp

[Geodar]

Hi, I find this shot slightly over exposed, I noticed that you shot with an ISO of 800, was there a reason for this?
I also find the background horse a slight distraction and I would have liked to have seen an either eye or full face shot.
I have adjusted levels as the data was more to the over exposed side. I have also added a blur filter while keeping the eye sharp. Not adding blur brings out more detail in the horses coat and adjusting the levels has brought out the colour of the horse.
Regards
Geoff