The Kelpies

The Kelpies (meaning, in Gaelic, a water spirit that typically takes the form of a horse) are the largest sculptures of horses in the world at 200 feet high. They are located near Falkirk, Scotland, and they are beautiful as well as very impressive. They are surrounded by a small moat and grass in a lovely park, and although the setting is attractive, I wanted to create something different. In many parts of Scotland now, there are stunning fields of brilliant yellow rape seed used in making canola oil. I photographed one of the fields that bordered the road and then used it as a foreground for the aluminum sculpture. I replaced the original light and uninteresting sky with dramatic clouds, and that made all the difference. Once you know how to make precise selections in Photoshop and to copy and paste images together, the sky is the limit to what you can do. I used a 24-105mm lens to photograph the Kelpies, and a 100-400mm lens to shoot the field of rape seed and the clouds.