Horsin' Around in Terre Haute

pathfinder

The Indianapolis Colts are coming to Terre Haute for their summer training camp.

To celebrate, the Swope Art Museum is hosting "Horsin' Around in Terre Haute", a community wide celebration with fibreglass life size colt statues displayed throughout the community.

"Horsin' Around in Terre Haute" is a take off on the famous www.cowpainters.com, that specializes in creating fibreglass figures of animals, that are then painted by local artists and displayed throughout the community. Antonio Correia pointed me to the cowpainters.com website, as this has been a popular attraction in many European cities as well.

There are about thirty statues of these colorful colts displayed throughout the Terre Haute area, and I decided to photograph some of them. In this website, there has been a lovely demonstration of the use of cross lighting with flash in bright sunlight. I decided to give this technique a bit of a go.

I took an EOS 550ex mounted on a seperate tripod, and triggered it with an ST-E2 ( Canon's IR trigger). I tended to put the strobe so it was facing the sun, lighting the shaded side of the colt statue. I shot either in Av or Manual mode with a EOS camera. I used FEC of 0 to - 2/3s of a stop, and EC or 0 to -5/3.

Here are some of the images. The rest can be seen here

Be careful to check the exif data, as not all those shots were shot with flash, as this has been a more than one day project.








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Isolating these statues in an urban environment can be challenging. The use of flash helps in this regard.

The exercise has also anwered any question I had about the ability of the ST-E2 to work reliably in bright sunshine. The answer is that is certainly can - It is helpful to remember to point the red IR sensor window on the flash at the ST-E2, and then rotate the strobe head, as needed, to illuminate the subject.

hamster

I saw the cows in Seattle - the colts are great! Your work with the flash paid off - these images are wonderful.

Stormdancing

Very neat shots PF.

Down here in Evansville the United Way of Southwestern Indiana has sponsored the same type of thing. One year they did the horses. Other years they did cars, fish, butterflys and chairs. Each item was sponsored by a local company or group and sold at charity auction to benefit the United Way after being displayed on the Riverside Dr at the Riverfront. A lot of fun to see the artistic touches applied to each item.

saurora

Great shots Jim! I love the way the flash makes the horses "pop" but doesn't really look like a flash. The horses are marvelous and your photos really worked well!!!

schmoo

Jim, wonderful shots of such whimsical creatures! I like your use of flash here - in the first it almost looks like you were photographing them in a museum. Great job minimizing/utlizing the urban background in your portraits.

A lot of your (undoubtedly useful) technical speak went right over my head, though.

pathfinder

hamster wrote:

I saw the cows in Seattle - the colts are great! Your work with the flash paid off - these images are wonderful.

Glad you liked them.

pathfinder

Stormdancing wrote:

Very neat shots PF.

Down here in Evansville the United Way of Southwestern Indiana has sponsored the same type of thing. One year they did the horses. Other years they did cars, fish, butterflys and chairs. Each item was sponsored by a local company or group and sold at charity auction to benefit the United Way after being displayed on the Riverside Dr at the Riverfront. A lot of fun to see the artistic touches applied to each item.

Thanks, Stormdancing.

These are to be auctioned off later also..

I want to reshoot some of them shot without flash, again with better lighting.

pathfinder

saurora wrote:

Great shots Jim! I love the way the flash makes the horses "pop" but doesn't really look like a flash. The horses are marvelous and your photos really worked well!!!

Thanks Saurora.

The ability to control the lighting ratio between subject and ground is very useful.

Painters have been doing it for centuries, of course.

pathfinder

schmooo wrote:

Jim, wonderful shots of such whimsical creatures! I like your use of flash here - in the first it almost looks like you were photographing them in a museum. Great job minimizing/utlizing the urban background in your portraits.

A lot of your (undoubtedly useful) technical speak went right over my head, though.

Thanks, Stephanie. Thank you for your appreciation of the challenges in shooting close in to urban backgrounds. I would have loved to have been able to move these statues just a few feet one way or the other, or just rotated them 30-45 degrees.

As for flash, no mumbo jumbo technical speak.

I used flash. Just not on the camera. Sometimes more, sometimes less. You could just move the flash back and forth until you get what you desire. I just used the little adjustment dials instead of moving the tripod with the flash - I am lazy, that's all.

You, of all people, can do this Stephanie!!

Osprey Whisperer

Nice series Jim. Interesting sculptures. They do that (copying Chicago etc.) down here also. We've had pigs, cows, fish and what not. It was different the first time. Now...well..

Richard

Excellent work, Jim. I think my favorite is the first. The negative EC makes the background look surreal, and as you may know by now, I am very fond of the surreal.

Regards,

pathfinder

Bird Man Photographer wrote:

Nice series Jim. Interesting sculptures. They do that (copying Chicago etc.) down here also. We've had pigs, cows, fish and what not. It was different the first time. Now...well..

Thaks Mike.

I can understand that the first experience, is more exciting than its repetition. I live in the hinterlands so it was new to me though.:D

pathfinder

rsinmadrid wrote:

Excellent work, Jim. I think my favorite is the first. The negative EC makes the background look surreal, and as you may know by now, I am very fond of the surreal.

Regards,

Thanks, RS, I remember your love of the surreal.

Thank you for your kind words.

USAIR

Boy those did turn out nice the horses really poped out of the background.

Fred

pathfinder

USAIR wrote:

Boy those did turn out nice the horses really poped out of the background.

Fred

Thanks, Fred.

That was my take of this exercise also - the subject stands out nicely, without offending the eye.

You can see that they were flashed if you look carefully. A soft box diffuser and a polarizing filter would probably decrease that perception of flash. Still, it is pleasing without a softbox - this was straight on 550ex flash head without a diffuser of any kind.

I found a few more ponies late this evening...





These two are directly across from a new hotel being constructed, as you can see in the background. The first one is papered in blue prints.

hawkeye978

I echo the rest. I particularly like the way the second shot really pops from the background. In Boston we've done this with cows. Not quite the cachet of horses but what the heck.

USAIR

The first of the last set is awesome love the background blur/bokeh in all.
I think that also helps to make them pop too.

What lens did you use ?
I looked at the exif data but it didn't help.

Thanks

Fred

pathfinder

Fred,

The last three images posted just above were all shot with a 5D and a 70-200 f2.8 IS L.

Some of the others may have been shot with either a 24-105 f4 IS L or a 16-35 f2.8 L II.

pathfinder

I corraled a few more.....:D

All with the 70-200f2.8 IS L, Fred.

schmoo

Really nice detectivework! I love how unique they all are. I think my favorite is the one with blueprints.

Here in Baltimore they had fish, and I'm kind of wishing now I'd gone around and taken photos of them like you have.

jamesl

pathfinder wrote:

The Indianapolis Colts are coming to Terre Haute for their summer training camp.

You did a great job on these in a tough lighting and composition location! Very nice job of isolation the horses, even with the sometimes busy backgrounds. You should contact them and see if they are looking to buy some photos of their works.

James