Longhorns (Now with more trees)

[James Clark]

This one's been sitting in Lightroom for a couple of months.  I always though it had potential, but I could never quite find a solution I was happy with.  When I saw this off to the side of a small Texas highway, the cattle in the clearing and the contrast of the dry grass and the sky was sort of an idyllic Texas picture, but what I saw that day didn't really come through to my camera until I spent some more in-depth time really looking at what I wanted the image to become.  Hope y'all can see what I saw.

[Matt Tilghman]

Very nice composition, but I think you pushed the shadows/highlights too far (or a similar HDR filter), as it appears a tad too flat.

[francois]

I like the composition with the tree covering the cows. However, I have to agree with Matt, the image is a bit flat.

[James Clark]

After coming back to this after a few days I agree with you both.  Going to work with this a little more. This has been confounding me for months.  

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

It's well worth a bit more work.

[James Clark]

I went back and worked on another image from the same sequence.  It was shot under slightly different light and I ended up taking it in a more painterly direction.  Thoughts?

[James Clark]

I hoped for -- Now with more of the Longhorns -- enough so I wouldn't need a title to tell me they are Longhorns.

(This sounds so nasty and I don't mean it to be. I just hope to suggest the chasm between what the image means to you, and how little of that might come across to someone else -- a dry winter field with distant cattle and trees.)

Fair. Not nasty, and good food for thought regarding what people inherently are exposed to in my community vs. others.

[Justan]

I like both works. I like the 2nd one more.

Usually you want to show the entire tree when it - or they - are part of the central subject. In the first image, a part of the tree's right side is missing and in the 2nd one, it appears both foreground trees are slightly clipped.

Also were it mine, I would split the different in the color treatment and apparent brightness. The first is a tad too warm or saturated on the ground, and the 2nd is a tad cool and dark. I like the sky on both.

The 2nd one would probably be popular at galleries and shows. People *love* pastorals with cows, even though, most do not GAS what breed the cows may be (just sayin’).

[James Clark]

I like both works. I like the 2nd one more.

Usually you want to show the entire tree when it - or they - are part of the central subject. In the first image, a part of the tree's right side is missing and in the 2nd one, it appears both foreground trees are slightly clipped.

Also were it mine, I would split the different in the color treatment and apparent brightness. The first is a tad too warm or saturated on the ground, and the 2nd is a tad cool and dark. I like the sky on both.

The 2nd one would probably be popular at galleries and shows. People *love* pastorals with cows, even though, most do not GAS what breed the cows may be (just sayin’).

I hear you on the trees, and you're 100% right.  Sadly, the setup I had and the shooting position didn't allow me to go any wider.  One solution that occurred to me would be to actually "prune" the trees digitally, but I'm not sure I want to go down that road.  I do have one other sequence - it's a 5 shot horizontal stitch shot in portrait that *might* capture all the elements in the best way if I can get the lighting / processing recipe figured out.

And here in Texas, we definitely care if our cows are longhorns, but perhaps I should just call it "Trees with Cows"