Exmoor Ponies Final Images

I spent about 3 hours finding then photographing the ponies. I had to be very quiet (as expected really) when photographing the ponies as I didn't want to spook them. At first I was worried about getting too close in case they ran away, which is why my first shots are not as close-up, as I was slowly but surely making my way closer, until I hid behind a tree. My only problem then was that the ponies had gotten used to my presence and so wouldn't raise their heads to look at me like they had done at first. This meant that I had to cough or talk to them, and finally one of the ponies did raise their head, allowing me to get a couple of decent shots. These are the two photographs that I picked as my best from my contact sheets.

Some of the images were slightly out of focus in places as I was using a manual focus on my lens, and so I picked the photos that I thought were in focus the best. I did use Photoshop to brighten the images, as they were a little dull due to having slightly the wrong settings. The weather was temperamental on the day I decided to shoot, and I would get the camera settings right only for the sun to either disappear behind clouds or become very bright, making my images either underexposed or overexposed. In the end I decided that I could fix this by using Photoshop, as by constantly messing with camera settings I would sometimes miss a photo opportunity. I used the same technique as Craig Jones did in his wildlife photography, by making both the background and foreground out of focus. I also used light as a key element in my images, as the light is glancing off the one side of the ponies flank and mane.

I posted these photos on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I'm not sure which will end up being the most popular, but since this is something that is local to me, it depends on which outlet I have the most local followers/friends.