Equine photography 101

They shoot horses, don't they?

Sure they do, and you can too. Of course, we're talking about shooting pictures, not committing equicide!

A digital camera offers some advantages, not least of which is their ability to shoot picture after picture. Many allow instant review and deletion, so you can just erase any shot you don't like. There are lots of places to get a quality digital camera for less than retail price. I bought mine on eBay, but you may want to look at what Dell, Kodak, or HP have in refurbished cameras. Google can find their websites for you.

Single use digitals are another option, but they won't give you the erase what you don't like option. Many are available for about ten to fifteen dollars. Try CVS, Walgreen's or Ritz Camera for a good selection at a value price.

Now for the practical advice. First and foremost, have your subject looking his best. This may mean you'll need to bathe him, comb his mane, untangle his tail, and polish (oil) his hooves. If your horse gets surly or "out of sorts" by this much handling, you may find it a good idea to put him in a stall with a nice flake of hay, or a bucket of grain until his temperament improves. You'll want him relaxed and cooperative for the shoot.

"I'm ready for my closeup, Mr. DeMille".

Formal Dinner, standing at Hidden Point Farm


The great head shots you see in stallion ads are generally taken by professionals with tons of experience (and often, a price to match). They know lots of tricks to make their work stand out, and you can employ some of them quite easily.
Trick one, get that shine by applying a light film of oil or even just water to his face. A moist towelette will do the trick, just be sure to avoid anything with a strong scent or lots of alcohol.
Trick two, shoot the headshot indoors, or in a small, confining paddock. You don't want Ole Dobbin plotting his escape while you're setting up the shot. If indoors, choose a location with lots of sunlight streaming in, but try to avoid placing your subject in direct sunlight. If you must resort to using a flash, rig some kind of deflector, so that the flash bounces off the ceiling, rather than off the horse's face.

Using a digital camera offers a few more advantages here. First, you can attach a lead to the halter and crop it out later, and second, you can zoom and cut to make the head fit more precisely in the finished photo. But even if you use a film camera, you can still do these things by having your film processed onto a digital form, usually a CD which you can input into a graphics program for fine tuning.

Conformation shots. These are what you generally see in catalogs, stallion registers, or for sale ads, and they can be a great help in getting your horse sold, or they can make him look like Barney Google's horse Sparky.

Colony Light, standing at Rising Hill Farm
These should always be taken outdoors, with a natural background, and on pavement or very short grass. Buyers want to see the horse's hooves, and may suspect that you're trying to hide something if long grass covers the hooves to the coronet band.

Sunlight can be the photographer's best friend, or her worst enemy. Bright sunlight is not what we want here, nor is it needed. Best times of day are about an hour or two after sunrise or before sunset. The light will add a "glow" at those times. Midday is all right if there is a light cloud cover, but be careful that the sun doesn't cause the legs or the face to be in shadow.

Morning or evening, it is best to have the sun behind the photographer's shoulder. Never, never shoot with the sun at right angles to the subject. And if the sun is directly at your back, you may have a long shadow of your own to deal with. Shooting into the sun will generally introduce you to the law of unexpected consequences.

Setting up the conformation shot. As I said before, it is best to have a natural background. Buildings and fences will only detract from the finished product, unless your location looks like one of the top Kentucky breeding farms, so try for a background which has distant hills or woods, but avoid any sharp delineation of dark/light, such as a dark thicket giving way to a bright sky half way up the horse. The area directly behind the horse should be more or less the came color or intensity throughout, extending to well above his ears.

Pick out the spot where you will set up the horse, and the place from which you'll shoot before even bringing him into the scene. It is best to have a knowledgeable horseperson handle the horse, and even better if it's someone whom he knows and feels comfortable with.

Lights, camera, action!

So now that everything is in place, the subject looks like a million dollars, your assistant has placed him where you want, and you have camera at the ready, it's time to start clicking away, right? WRONG!

If you've ever taken pictures to accompany registration applications, you are probably aware that they require that all four legs are visible in every shot. We want that here, as well. So be sure to set up the horse with both front legs straight and positioned with the off (right) leg just slightly behind the near leg, and the off hind leg slightly ahead of the other. You get both front legs in the picture by positioning yourself just back of midpoint of the horse's body, about parallel with his belly. If you are of average height, you will want to squat, kneel, or even sit in a chair, so as to avoid shooting from above the midpoint of the horse vertically. Shots taken from above this point result in a picture of a horse with shortened legs.

You will want his ears to be upright, and turned forward. Usually this is easy to accomplish simply by having the handler call his name, chirp to him, or swing the lead rope just a bit.

Once everything is just so, it's time to start shooting, and you should shoot like Butch and Sundance taking on the entire Bolivian army. Take at least three shots in rapid succession, reposition yourself and your subject, then start shooting again. Just like in body building, it's the repetitions which lead to success. Be patient, and take a few minutes between shooting sessions if you don't feel you have got just the right results.

"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

Don't know what that has to do with anything, but it's one of my favorite Beatles lyrics. And in the end the quality of the picture you take will be equal to the effort you make to follow these recommendations.