Once you have a striking silhouette, it can be placed in front of many backgrounds. What is so great about the horse silhouette in yesterday's and today's post is the shape of the front legs. I had to take many frames to get this. The medium format camera I used, Mamiya RZ 67, had to be cocked manually to advance the film, thus giving me only one shot for every time the horse reared. Great leg positions -- and great wing shapes -- make or break action pictures involving animals and birds. Regarding horses, sometimes extended legs look awkward and ungainly. But in this shot, the one extended leg and the one artistically bent leg are perfect together and, along with the flying mane, define this picture. The composite here was used years ago for a national ad campaign for Busch beer. With a sunset background of subtle mauve hues, this same horse shot was used for the video and DVD box covers for the movie Black Stallion (a terrific family film with Mickey Rooney that I highly recommend). I photographed this mountain range in the state of Washington and then created the reflection digitally simply by mirroring the top portion of the landscape.
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