You can make photos that look great with a few practical pointers. When you’ve read all of this you will have learned more than reading several general photography books could ever teach you about getting good horse photos.

First of all you need to know horses. The better you can read them, understand them & pay attention to what they will do the quicker you can get the picture you want. Nothing done with horses can be rushed, with practice it can be done quickly but you can’t hurry the horse or get frustrated when things don’t go your way. Be prepared, some of the best shots occur because you’re ready & the horse strikes the perfect stance or does something unexpected while you’re waiting. Just having the camera with you without “trying” to get a shot can get you an unforgettable picture.

Horses move, they move fast, they don’t like being crowded & they sure aren’t going to stand in a studio under lights & hold a pose. That means you need to have the equipment & know-how to deal with a horse as a moving subject with enough distance to stay out of his way. You have little control of the light, weather, or location. The more horses or people added to the mix, generally the more difficult to get a good shot.

Most important isn’t the camera or accessories but you paying attention to everything that goes into making the photograph. Don’t go out and buy camera gear. Use what you have first to see if it will do the job. A good photographer can get good pictures with just about any camera. All the bells & whistles on a fancy camera won’t do you any good if you haven’t developed an eye for the subject.

Standing out in the field trying to get the perfect shot without knowing how your camera works won’t accomplish much either. If you haven’t worked with your camera enough to know what the different controls do, trying to figure it out with the horse in front of you won’t get the picture made. You have to be comfortable with your gear so when that “perfect shot” comes along you’re prepared.

So practice. Just shoot a roll of film as often as you can under different conditions. Keep a little notebook. When you get the film back take a critical look at the pictures, figure out what you don’t like & how to change it. Then go out & shoot another roll. Be prepared to have a lot of throwaways in the beginning. As you practice more and figure out what it takes to get photos you like it will become more automatic. It’s amazing how quickly you’ll find out what works & what doesn’t.

Some good places to practice out of your own backyard are the local race track, show, distance ride or exhibition. Stay out of the competitor’s way, look for something that interests you & take a few shots.

Like anything else you have to have the right tools for the job. The right tools for you may not be the same as someone else. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking a certain camera or technique will guarantee results. My tried & true equipment is the 35mm auto-focus Minolta 7000 with a 70-210 zoom lens & camera mounted flash. It’s loaded with Kodak 200 print or slide film. Because it works for me. Time & time again. I didn’t know that when I started but I experimented & found out what got the pictures I wanted with the least hassle & expense. As we go along in this article I’ll explain why it works.

Now with computers & digital cameras you can “fix” a lot of mistakes or make fantasy pictures. But there are a lot of things that can’t be changed regardless of the technology. Make an effort to create a photograph that comes out of the camera right & you’ll be better for it and a lot less frustrated.

On to the real specifics of taking the photos you want. Focus & framing, focus & framing, focus & framing! These are important. They have to be controlled regardless of whether you take people, animals, landscapes or anything else. They condense what you saw or wanted to convey into the image others see.

FOCUS means the subject is sharp, clear, non-blurry, whatever term you want to use. It doesn’t mean the entire photograph is sharp. Selective focus is one of the first signs of a creative photographer, choosing what will be sharp in the picture & making sure it is. Most horse photos seen in breed magazines show the horse in a side view posing. Look closely & you’ll notice the horse is clear but the background usually is less so. This is to draw attention to the subject, the horse. As a photograph gets closer to the horse, less body more head & neck, focus becomes more important to show detail. The closer the more critical. The eye of the subject is the most impotant thing that needs to be in focus.

A point & shoot camera of any type will not give you this control. You need a camera that lets you set aperture to choose depth of field. And you will learn that a certain aperture gives a different result depending on the distance between you & the horse. Back to your little notebook.

FRAMEING, not what you put the picture in, but what you put in the picture. How it’s composed. Where the subject, the horse, is placed in the picture. What is included, what’s
left out. Don’t have people wondering what is going on in the picture. If this is a horse doing something, show what it is, clearing the fence, straining for the finish line, working that cow. Again, look at good horse pictures. It’s a HORSE picture. Not the fence, the trees, the barn, the next property.

Most of the time there’s way too much distracting ‘stuff’ around. Keep everything out of the photo that you don’t choose to have in it. A tree may be a lovely part of the photo but not if it looks like it’s sticking out of the horse. White fences are nice but don’t work with light colored horses in front of them. Dark horses standing in front of trees disappear. Our brains see color differently than a camera does. We have to learn to see it the camera’s way. Many times a color photo is reprinted black & white, which changes the appearance even more. Try to give a dark horse a light background & a light horse a dark one without obvious horizontal or vertical distractions.

At first you’ll see things when the pictures come back that you didn’t when you took them. Then you’ll begin to see it looking through the viewfinder, finally you do it unconsciously. Train your eye to notice everything in the viewfinder, and where it is. Don’t take the picture until you think you’ve got something good.

Get close. Close-ups look great, they are more personal. They make the person looking at the photo feel like they were there. It makes this horse look special, not just like every other horse. Because horses are big, people don’t think about getting close. You want the horse to fill most of the photo, not be a small part of it.

Believe it or not viewers do react to how the horse (or any other subject) is placed within the photo. Give him a bit of space to move or breathe in. Don’t crowd him in the photo with his nose or tail right up to the edge. How many pictures have you seen or taken with the hooves missing, the tips of the ears gone or the handler without the top of their head. Not good. Everything doesn’t have to be in the photo but you need to make smart choices. He needs space under his feet, room to move forward & openness above his head unless you have a specific reason for cropping it closer.

A head shot usually looks best when the neck is included as well as the ears. A whole different look is created with the neck arched or bowed, head turned back over a shoulder and either fire or softness in the eye. Breeds that are known for beauty look best with flowing manes, accentuated heads & necks or moving free. Horses known for strength appear more powerful poised for action, doing a job or drawing attention to their muscling. ¾ views instead of profiles present the horse’s best attributes while showing most of him. It’s hard to beat a photo of a Quarter Horse taken from his hip. It shows a powerful rear end, good legs and still gives a look at his head & neck. Again think about what you want people to know about this horse. Are you going for a portrait, action, mood or a cover shot.

The reasons for the gear I use. The auto-focus multi-mode camera lets you make adjustments to get the look you want. A lot of your photos will be done by the camera’s automatic program so you don’t have to think about the technical aspects. When you want the control to compensate for less than perfect lighting, deal with quick action or get really close you have to have a camera that let’s you make the choices. The auto focus can be very helpful. It knows when the picture is focused. You don’t have to fumble for focus with a fractious horse, when your eyesight isn’t the best, or that brief instant during fast action that is sharp. The combination of shutter speed, aperture & film rating gives you many more options, therefore chances, to get the shot you want regardless of light, movement, background or whatever else you can’t change.

200 speed film allows higher shutter speeds or longer lenses. Both are needed when photographing anything that isn’t close, standing still or in perfect light. Print film is available, familiar & readily processed. Once it leaves your camera all your work can be undone because it will go through a machine that is programmed to “average” it. Slide film, especially Kodachrome, will be accurate. It will show what the camera was told to do, not what the processor decided. Wait until you are comfortable with your work before you invest in the additional cost of chrome.

Flash can make the biggest difference in your horse photos. No, it will not hurt the horse’s eyes. Everybody thinks because you’re outside in the daylight you don’t need flash. Wrong. Flash evens out the shadows you may not notice, has a tendency to freeze motion & most important adds sparkle to the eye! All things being equal the picture that has been flashed will look much better. Flash only works for a short distance though, much more than 10 feet, forget it.

The 70-210 zoom lens makes magic. It lets you stand in one place, far enough from the horse to be safe, close enough for the flash to be effective and get shots of the whole horse, just his head & neck or closer. It allows you to keep the horse within the picture as he moves around. It lets you stand at the rail & fill the frame with only the horse you want or several. It will bring the horses out in a field or breaking from the starting gate much closer than you could walk up to. It also solves one of the most common disasters in horse photography. The full body shot of the horse that is coming toward you that looks like he’s all head or the head shot that looks all nose. Without going into technical discussion a regular lens or standard camera enlarges what is closest to it. The longer lens compresses it. The longer lens gives a more natural rendition.

Now that you have some practical pointers, go out & get the photos you want. Enjoy your horses & the pictures you take of them.

If you have questions, please contact: bluepony80@hotmail.com