Household Cavalry - the epitamy of "Britishness"?

[stevegreen]

Well, I have had a bit of a time thinking of what to photograph that says 'Britishness'. I have had thoughts of Mini's, teapots and even spent an hour or so in the rain at a parade of the Staffordshire regiment. I nearly had a shot from that but there was a bit of blur that I didn't account for so it got scrapped.

It is the West Mids Show in Shrewsbury this weekend so we went along yesterday (on press passes ) and spent the day wandering round. Lots of cows, bulls, sheep and other farmyard stuff, a Stunt Bike display, horse racing and The Household Cavalry doing a parade.

I ended up with two or three possible entries and plumped for this one.

This is a HDR converstion of a single RAW file split 6 times with differing exposure values from -3 to +2. The original was taken on manual and underexposed to retain sky detail (it threatenend to rain numerous times but didn't). The HDR has helped bring out the detail in the horses which was 'lost' in the original.

Original .exif

Aperture f/5.6
Shutter Speed 1/200
ISO-100
Focal length 32mm



The image is clickable to the Flickr photo page. I'll email Simon the original file for .exif verification.

Comments welcome

[tryingtimes]

Really nice use of HDR Steve - I wouldn't have known if you hadn't told me.
Nice focus, composition and low shooting angle.
And, of course - British

I guess the only thing that takes something away from it for me, is that the shape of the trees in the background distract a bit from the horses (mainly because they are similar tonally), but it's a minor thing and I only mention it because you are obviously used to having your photos c&c'd

[stevegreen]

Thanks mate

Yeah, I agree the trees and the highlight spot in the sky are both unfortunate. I considered a squarer crop picking out the two in the foreground, but then the highlight spot was even more distracting. Wish I hadn't got those caravans in either

[Pinocchio61]

Nice shot Steve,right on theme but as you say it's a shame about the caravans, they do distract the eye a little.

[Gizmo 76]

6 times!! Come on you can do better than that!!

Really nice shot steve, and very nice HDR work, the sky and foreground all sits together very nicely indeed.

[Gizmo 76]

Opps...Double Post.

[Gizmo 76]

Damn Triple post! Sorry Steve, mods can you please tidy, forum playing around a bit today....honest

[Zone]

Originally Posted by stevegreen

I'll email Simon the original file for .exif verification.

Received mate

[vulkan75]

nIce shot steve..on theme.Its a shame the backdrop is a carpark kinda spoils it.

[stevegreen]

Originally Posted by vulkan75

nIce shot steve..on theme.Its a shame the backdrop is a carpark kinda spoils it.

I maybe should have waited until they did their main display but I was worried that I couldn't have got close enough with my lowly 105mm range

[bodoman]

Yep thats British alright and not a rotten doorway or cracked plaster in sight.
Excellent