Thanks ChriZ, my sister says that I have Man-hands, and I have always wanted elegant long fingers but know that they would not have been able to handle the abuse mine have taken.
;-)

...I hit the Submit button by accident.

Abouit the $9,000...I was intending to suggest that a print of this image was up for auction...not the horse.

There are several minor things that bug me, of which you are probably aware, and I hope you don't mind my mentioning them here.
--Why does the left index finger tip have to be hidden? Did you try this with different hand/finger positions?
--What is the little highlight under the wrist? I can't ell if it is horse markings or a highlight somewhere in the background.
--What is that black hair, thread, scratch across the forearm on the right side of the image? Dont you find that distracting?

All in all, brilliant. Did you picture this in your mind before you went out to the stable?

Thanks King for the comments. The finger would have completely disappeared if I had held it out straight. The black hair kind of bugs me too but I decided to leave it for the time being. The highlight is my other arm which I will also fix. I will post a more processed versionon my blog when I have the chance but I thank you for your pickiness. ;-)

Tracy,

For W.S. viewing, I think that the halter helps us understand more immediately that this is a horse's head and what part of the head we are seeing. If W.S. had a black background, or you made a very high-quality print, then I'm sure Mark is right, the composition would be enhanced and the shot improved.

You didn't answer my question---Did you picture this in your mind before you went out to the stable?

King,

I knew that I wanted to shoot this particular horse because he is black and that the contrast would be striking but when it comes to shooting horses patience is key and this guy is not. My first shots were braiding his tail and while I really like one of those images, I knew it would not be easily interpreted within WS so I moved to his head and just tried several different angles until I thought I had a good one. His eye was closed in about 75% of the shots I took so that limited my choices.

So I guess the answer is both yes and no.:-)

Ana, are you sure about this? Try covering the bottom with your hands, since the horse is looking down cropping of the bottom would create a lot of tention.
If anything then I would move everything down a bit, bring the eye in the top left third spot and move down with the hand... but that's just an idea. I actually like this as it is

Tracy...any change this will be featured? I still thing you should hang a print of this on your wall.

@King - Not likely
Ratings Summary

* Relevance: 3.31
* Impact: 3.08
* Composition: 3.31
* Technique: 3.46
* Quality: 3.85
* Overall: 3.402

I played around with it this morning while I was waiting for my flight. I took out the halter, the hair and the errant highlight and it really looks better.

Tracy...you just need a few more raters.

Let's get those comments going, folks!

What comments?

Exactly!

What you mean?

This might be way to complicated for me...

Could you show me what you mean?

Or at least tell me?

ChriZ...you play naive very well.

Keep it up!

I will, although my image could use this a lot more!
I'm so not selfish, ah... me is good person...

ChriZ...I haven't found your photo yet. I've been very busy today. I'll look some more tomorrow.

She has a thing for horses.

I have a thing for her.