Chestnut

Ok so full disclaimer here: I don’t know anything about horses. I’m calling this post Chestnut because apparently that’s what reddish-brown horses are called, but I could be way off base here. Feel free to correct me :)

This is a companion to last week’s picture, and if you read that description of how I got the shot I’m not going to replay the whole thing here. Basically we had a snow day so my wife and our kids, in the course of the day, were able to walk down to the edge of a horse pasture near our house and get a few shots of the inhabitants. This horse seemed casually interested in us and kind of strolled over to where were were standing to see what all the fuss was about, and as she walked closer I fired off several pictures with my Nikon D500 and 70-200 f/2.8 lens.

This ended up being my wife’s favorite picture and I agree with her. I had a few others where the ears were visible, but I liked how this image conveys a sense of closeness and intimacy that the other pictures lacked. I shot this at 116mm so the horse wasn’t exactly right next to me, but it feels like you could rub your hand on her head when you look at the picture. I really like how the shallow depth of field puts your focus right on her eye, and the frost in her mane and on her chin (as well as the monochromatic background sell the feeling of how cold it was on that early February morning.