Project 52: Week 39. Eriskay ponies.

[billtils]

We are spending a week in South Uist and surrounding areas of the Outer Hebrides. There has not been much time to spend on taking photographs, but there should be more than enough by the end of the week.

Our first outing was the 20 minute trip to Eriskay, where lady luck led us up a side road and past a field with a couple of Eriskay ponies. These are the original native ponies of the Western Isles of Scotland used by crofting families for a wide range of tasks, including bringing home peat and seaweed and taking the children to school. The stock of pure bred ponies had declined to a around 20 animals by the early 1970s. Fortunately, a group of local people comprising a priest, doctor, vet, scientist and crofters, got together to reverse the decline, and numbers have risen steadily to over 400.

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[Jim A]

Thanks for sharing, not only the image, but the story, Bill. Although living in New Zealand for the past 53 years, I was brought up on the Isle of Skye until I was ten years old.

[FootLoose]

This is a good image, Bill and I think you could do a bit with it to make it standout. If it were mine, I would crop from the top down to the rock on the left to bring more prominence to the ponies. Then I would adjust contrast, saturation, lighting to warm the scene. I think the water could be more blueish and the yellowish grass next to it could be more reddish. This would make a more contrasty scene and then brighten the ponies a bit and they would pop out of the background. Judging by the angle of the shadows cast by the ears the sun was low in the sky so I would expect stronger shadows on the horses and that would give more detail to their bodies.

[billtils]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Greg.

Regarding the shadows, it was shot at 4:15 and indeed the sun was low in the sky by then.

I do agree that some edits would bring out the ponies, but am doing this on the MacBookPro just to get a feel for the shots and to let me keep up with the Project 52 weekly commitment. I'll certainly take a good look at the image when I get back to the big screen and full size trackpad.