Photographing Horses

This is not going to be a basic "how to take a photo" instructable but more of a how to work with a living breathing animal that has a mind of it's own instructable.

Horses are a great subject for photos but they can be hard to work with. They move around and tend to blink at just the wrong moment. Don't give up on them, there are some tricks that you can use to get good horse photos so grab your camera and lets get started.

First you have to decide what you want to do with the photo.
Do you want a nice photo to hang on the wall?
Something that will show the beauty of a horse in motion.
Or maybe you need to part with your horse and need nice photos to show him off on a sale ad.

Step 1 The bare bones

Let's start with the bare bones that you need to think about for any photo.

One of the first things you need is the horse. If you want him to look nice and clean make sure you groom him first but a good photo of a horse doesn't always start with a clean horse. Horses love to roll in dirt and mud and that is part of being a horse so showing him dirty isn't a bad thing. But if flies are a problem you do need to use a good fly spray or they will show up in the photo, plus the horse will be harder to keep still if you want a nice posed photo.

Comments

[cloudifornia]

Not to be rude, but I'd rethink taking or using any moving photograph with a bra-less female rider wearing tennis shoes.

One tip my wife always uses for conformation shots is to wet the horse down and scrape off the water. (She leaves the mane and tail dry.) It makes the horses' muscles really pop out.

[Stormieqh]

Not rude at all but remember that what we see is not always the truth. She did have a strapless on. I do agree with the tennis shoes but it was a great shot of the horse that showed what I wanted to show for that section. I normally push for riding style boots/shoes and helmets on all riders on the farm. That was one of the rare cases I let it slide since she doesn't get here often, is a good rider and it was a good horse. BUT with that said as a photographer we don't always get to decide what an owner does with a horse for photos. I'm not fond of little kids without helmets on horses but at many shows that is just what happens. Do I not take the photos that they want because of that? At one show I didn't notice until I was proofing the photos but one of the kids had snowboots on and they didn't have a heel! Do I then refuse to sell them prints of those photos?

I like the wetting them down too or there is a high gloss spray they made for show cattle that will put a mirror like shine on them. It stays longer then the water does but does attract the dust.

I geared this more towards the avg horse person taking photos so I didn't try to go all out. I may redo this Instructable because I have thought of a lot of things I wanted to add including more on the safety part of it. Thanks for bringing that tip up.

[cloudifornia]

I understand you can't control the world. Too funny about the kid in snowboots!

The wetting down has nothing to do with shine. The water causes the muscles to become better-defined. Try it sometime. Just keep the mane and tail dry or the pic looks just like a wet horse!

Go figure! ;-O)

[Stormieqh]

I was totally shocked when I saw those boots in the photos. I'm normally really good as spotting things but was so busy that day.

That shine stuff does the same thing. Slicks the hair down so you see the muscles but also adds a high gloss shine. It's made for show cattle where you want to see the muscles stand out. It puts a nice shine on the manes and tails too. Same company makes other cattle show makeup. Colored sprays and this hair spray stuff that is way better then any human stuff but is a pain to wash out.

[khughes11]

A nice tutorial, although if you redo it I do have a suggestion - if you're taking pictures of horses, be prepared to take a LOT of pictures. I read an interview with Robert Vavra one time where he stated he used about 12 rolls of film on one of his early shoots and wound up with about four pictures he really liked (of course, this was in the days when people still used actual film...). For every picture of horses I've taken that I really liked, I've probably taken twenty that were so-so.

Also, be familiar with your camera - know how to use the iso and F-stop and shutter speed. You'll generally be photographing in either sunlight or indoor (arena) conditions, and you need to be able to adjust your camera accordingly. If you have a camera that will do a lot of shots in a row, even better for action shots (or still shots, for that matter - allows you to capture the one brief second the ears are both pointing forward!). I have a Nikon Coolpix P90 (not a camera I would recommend, but it's what my parents bought me for a college graduation present) that I took to the 2010 Arkansas Derby, and it has a feature where it'll shoot as long as you keep turning the dial. I have literally got series of pictures where you see every stride the horses take as they come down the stretch - and because my settings were right, some of them look quite nice.

Sorry if any of this was included - I did skim more than I ought to have, but I don't even know why I'm awake at this point...

[Stormieqh]

There are a number of good instrutables about how to take good photos so that really wasn't my point with this one. I wanted more of a how to with the horses then a how to with the camera. So many sale photos of horses don't even show the horse enough to tell what it is. Or the whole horse is there but a 16hh draft looks like a 13hh pony....okay that was a stretch but I have seen tall horses look really short in the sale photos.

[ZoDo]

Nice pics. Where do I get some horses? :D

[Stormieqh]

If you want to be broke all of the time you can buy a few. I'm horse poor now with 3 of my own. Most horse people love to have good photos of their horses and are more then willing to let you snap away.

[Stormieqh]

Thanks everyone!

[sunshiine]

Beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing this.

[ChrysN]

Lovely photos and tips!

[scoochmaroo]

Beautiful work, and some really helpful tips. Thank you for sharing this!