Maude Svensson
July 2026 - Eye of Summer
About the Image(s)
On a hot summer day last year in Northern Sweden, I stopped the car when I spotted a horse standing quietly in the heat. Our eyes met. Moving closer, the horse dissolved into something almost abstract. His skin folded like mountain ridges, his eye lashes cascaded like waterfalls, and within his deep and dark eyes a story of the summer came through. The flies, uninvited yet inevitable, somehow completed the story. In post-processing, I cropped tightly to isolate eye, texture, and flies. I chose to convert it into Black and White, dodged and burned to heighten mystery and surface detail. Dark, maybe too dark, but if you look close enough you see the summer and the warmth.
3 comments posted
A very beautiful, almost sculptural rendering of the eye-intriguing, mysterious, and highly engaging. The only thing that caught my attention is what looks like some sharpening artifacts in the fur above the eye and around the long hairs in the lower right. You might try increasing the image resolution before sharpening or applying the sharpening more selectively. Those artifacts pull my eye away from the beautiful detail in the eye itself. I also think the out-of-focus area below the eye could be slightly darker to keep the viewer's attention centered. Overall, a wonderful image. Posted: 07/01/2026 21:13:13
Not too dark at all. This image has echoes of all sorts of mythology and mystery. There is ancient knowledge in that eye that gives the horse patience to deal with the annoying flies, which it will dismiss with a blink. A great shot. Posted: 07/10/2026 09:32:37
Love it! Dark, mysterious, and unique image. Great perspective allowing you to capture the fine details on the horse's eye and menacing flies. Good story. Nicely done. Posted: 07/10/2026 14:51:26