First attempt at equestrian

Carlh

Carlh

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Carl
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Just got home after working 9 hours, without a lunch break, trying to cover an event in a field that was the size of 4 normal fields so walked and walked and walked.

Nearly took 4,500 images, slowed down the image taking as I got to grips with knowing <when> to take a photo. This shot is one random I pulled (one random jump, still copying the first memory card onto the PC as I write this). Hoping I'll sell a number of prints to make this worth my while, but perhaps some other equestrian guys/girls could advise on what shots I should look for.

I spoke to a rider and asked them what shots appealed to them the most, came back with ears pointing forward/up, forelegs and back legs meeting in the middle, some good "natural" shots. So I tried to grab as much of that as I could, as well as face-on shots, horse-face portraits, prize giving etc.. patting/petting the horses. Am absolutely knackered but I think I enjoyed the day, to tired to say how much I enjoyed it.

So just the one image for now. Oh yeah, things I didn't like about the day: Cloudy one minute, clear sky the next, then black clouds, I was forever changing my shutterspeed and ISO (tried to keep it to IS250 and below), juggled shutterspeed between 400-640 (mainly 500-640), virtually every couple of minutes. It poured down with rain at one point for 20 minutes or so. Used spot metering so I at least got my subject exposed correctly and as you can see, sky is blown to hell. I've dropped the highlights to its lowest and upped the shadows to get some detail out of the horse itself.

Any tips on processing or what I should be looking for in my images, would really be appreciated as I imagine I'll be doing a 80%-90% cull. I'll pop up some more based on your suggestions (and what I personally like) in the week when I've gone through them all.

Thanks :)


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Few more from the same day, thanks for popping in :)

2.. Do I crop left, or do I crop right? I like the church tower but I think at the same time, I should have room on the left rather than the right
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3..
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4..
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None of these have been cropped from the originals, so I'm thinking leading space for them to "jump" into ? Is my processing ok? Thanks !
 
My brother does equestrian and I sometimes help out doing the printing and sales (on site) and the riders really like close ups as they're jumping and unusual angles.
Were you the official togger inside the arena?

E2A: We put the horse and rider bang in the middle of the frame, don't forget to straighten if needed.
 
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Hard subject to get right- may I as what lenses you used Carl?

here's a quick edit of the 1st image, with a little cloning and a crop, obviously a full sized image would be better for me to work on, but I'm sure you'll get the idea

I would shoot as wide as you can to help loose the clutter in the BG's or find a spot that has little or no clutter, easier said than done I guess





Les
 
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Lez325 said:
Hard subject to get right- may I as what lenses you used Carl?

here's a quick edit of the 1st image, with a little cloning and a crop, obviously a full sized image would be better for me to work on, but I'm sure you'll get the idea

I would shoot as wide as you can to help loose the clutter in the BG's or find a spot that has little or no clutter, easier said than done I guess





Les
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Cheers les, - thanks for the cropping tip (mind the pun) will do them central and close up.

Les, used my 6d and a 70-200mm L 2. Reach was ok other than when they were at the opposite side of the arena, got the hang of it about 3/4 through the day, was all over the place as the field was so large.

I've done my processing, numbering etc.. I need to do the crops next, thanks guys :)
 
Doing it all on site you want to minimise the amount of PP for obvious reasons, a quick straighten and a crop if needed all Jpgs.
 
DemiLion said:
Don't clone sports pictures.
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Why not?

ANY picture sports or any subject should NOT be cloned if ever going to be used for new/media..

But why not otherwise and particualry for sports?
 
DemiLion said:
Don't clone sports pictures.
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Why not? If there was a pile of horse poo 2 feet in front of the horse/handler in that pic would you leave it?
 
I took the liberty of editing one. Just a crop, straighten and slight sat boost.


Edit copyright Carl by happygolucky on Talk Photography

Trust me if you have customers lining up you don't have the time to spot heal.
Besides they choose on the monitors what Photo they want.
 
I have done a bit of PP removal, mostly on some rubbish left on the ground or a post (just using the remove lasso tool) that just pops into the image, they were all in RAW anyway, learned a bit lesson - not to overkill on the PP, keep it simple (y) and also, now I know what shots work/ do not work when taking them, I'll be taking a LOT less mundane "snaps" and more keepers that I would be happy to print out for myself.

A few of my favs I posted up on flickr this morning:

5.. I took this mainly for the organiser, who is a lovely lady and gives me her full support on their group, added in a gradient in PS, thats about it. I think she lives in the area so the church part was quite important for her, to be captured, if I could have.
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6..
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7..
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cheers everyone, as always - your comments are really appreciated and I would not improve if it was not for your input (y)(y)(y)
 
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Ok here's my 2p worth.

They all seem a little over processed, the colours don't look right in them. Forget to an extent about backgrounds, of course you want as uncluttered as possible but a rider isn't too worried if there's a shot of the local church in the frame or not. Centre the horse and rider in the frame. I think you've gone about this with a photographic head on rather than an event head- if you're the official tog you need to take what sells and not be creative so a short list would be :
Trotting photos side on with legs nearest you extended, furthest away they will be making an M shape. Cantering photos. Inhand photos with nice trot picture and conformation shot (side on showing the whole of horse). Headshots, candid shots. Jumping is a whole new ball game and you need to walk the course beforehand and work out which jumps are the best to cover- 45degree angle to the jump and ideally you want the back feet just left the ground and front legs tucked up.

But I really would suggest if you are taking on an event like that again finding some more photographers- as you can never do a multi ring horse show justice with just yourself taking photos.

They all seem a little soft too- don't worry about cranking up the ISO if needs be- we work on a minimum of 400 and outdoors on a gloomy day will put up to 800-1000, indoors during winter it's always on ISO 5000.

The main thing is just practise though... oh and a 9 hour day is short!
 
Twizzel said:
Ok here's my 2p worth.

They all seem a little over processed, the colours don't look right in them. Forget to an extent about backgrounds, of course you want as uncluttered as possible but a rider isn't too worried if there's a shot of the local church in the frame or not. Centre the horse and rider in the frame. I think you've gone about this with a photographic head on rather than an event head- if you're the official tog you need to take what sells and not be creative so a short list would be :
Trotting photos side on with legs nearest you extended, furthest away they will be making an M shape. Cantering photos. Inhand photos with nice trot picture and conformation shot (side on showing the whole of horse). Headshots, candid shots. Jumping is a whole new ball game and you need to walk the course beforehand and work out which jumps are the best to cover- 45degree angle to the jump and ideally you want the back feet just left the ground and front legs tucked up.

But I really would suggest if you are taking on an event like that again finding some more photographers- as you can never do a multi ring horse show justice with just yourself taking photos.

They all seem a little soft too- don't worry about cranking up the ISO if needs be- we work on a minimum of 400 and outdoors on a gloomy day will put up to 800-1000, indoors during winter it's always on ISO 5000.

The main thing is just practise though... oh and a 9 hour day is short!
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Something like these maybe?

8..
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9..
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10..
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11..
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12..
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13..
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14..
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15..
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as for the softness, it might be because I've done no web-preparation sharpening on the images, I should have shot higher, maybe 1000th and pumped up the ISO so will deffo keep that in mind but I think I've got the right mindset for what I need to get, among a load of shots I wont be taking again so its just good shots, if the above are ok, of course?
 
Yes a lot more like it, 8 is nice, 9 I'm not keen on the pony striking out with its foot, 10 needs cropping in closer, 11 is taken slightly too early as the legs aren't making that golden M shape, 12 is better timing but a no no for me because you've taken it outside the ring and the rope cuts across the horse, 13 doesn't do anything from me- you want to see the horse and rider's face... bum shots generally are not what riders are looking for. 14 is nice, 15 is probably the best of the bunch although again could do with slight cropping on top and left side of horse.

I shoot on aperture priority as found it gave me the best results in all lighting conditions as you can tell it can be very changeable! We did a show on Sunday, black clouds one minute, then sun, then monsooned with rain, then bright sun again!
 
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Twizzel said:
Yes a lot more like it, 8 is nice, 9 I'm not keen on the pony striking out with its foot, 10 needs cropping in closer, 11 is taken slightly too early as the legs aren't making that golden M shape, 12 is better timing but a no no for me because you've taken it outside the ring and the rope cuts across the horse, 13 doesn't do anything from me- you want to see the horse and rider's face... bum shots generally are not what riders are looking for. 14 is nice, 15 is probably the best of the bunch although again could do with slight cropping on top and left side of horse.

I shoot on aperture priority as found it gave me the best results in all lighting conditions as you can tell it can be very changeable! We did a show on Sunday, black clouds one minute, then sun, then monsooned with rain, then bright sun again!
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thats what I had lol, was last sunday, mental weather :) changing manual settings every 5 minutes then running for cover from the rain lol - those are great tips - thats rach - you're a star :ty:
 
Carlh said:
thats what I had lol, was last sunday, mental weather :) changing manual settings every 5 minutes then running for cover from the rain lol - those are great tips - thats rach - you're a star :ty:
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do you have a flickr page I can stalk? :) pick up some great tips from how you shoot, if thats ok with you, of course? :)
 
No problem! Obviously I have my event head on rather than pure photography but it seems to me that you'd like to carry on covering this kind of events so you do have to go at it from a totally different viewpoint.

My flickr is fairly bare but I have a very active facebook page you're welcome to have a geek at - https://www.facebook.com/rachaelbromagephotography?ref_type=bookmark
 
Rach has hit the nail on the head. Although its not a classic shot for event photography, #6 is probably my favourite frame. 8 works because you haven't made the classic mistake of cropping too hard on feet hidden by grass. 10 is very close but a fraction too late to show all four off the ground. 12 is pretty much there but the rope is a killer. 13, unlike Rach I quite like bum shots, and the horse is in perfect config, but its a marmite thing & probably wouldn't sell. 14, I don't think that the spread is quite big enough for the shot, but the horse is cute! 15 is easily the best jump timing but you're hampered by a small jump and the horse hasn't tucked up enough.
That latter point is key & shows with the first pics that you posted. Probably the hardest thing in photographing show jumping is making the combination look good over small fences!
 
DemiLion said:
Rach has hit the nail on the head. Although its not a classic shot for event photography, #6 is probably my favourite frame. 8 works because you haven't made the classic mistake of cropping too hard on feet hidden by grass. 10 is very close but a fraction too late to show all four off the ground. 12 is pretty much there but the rope is a killer. 13, unlike Rach I quite like bum shots, and the horse is in perfect config, but its a marmite thing & probably wouldn't sell. 14, I don't think that the spread is quite big enough for the shot, but the horse is cute! 15 is easily the best jump timing but you're hampered by a small jump and the horse hasn't tucked up enough.
That latter point is key & shows with the first pics that you posted. Probably the hardest thing in photographing show jumping is making the combination look good over small fences!
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cheers mark, its been a bit of a learning process but I did enjoy it, now to get some more under my belt where I can get shots that are more appealing to the riders.

Some of the comments for the example images I posted up have been really positive, they liked the not-so-routine jump images, such as #7 so I think I mat continue to do those type of shots, plus get the jump shots right and other more-expected shots.

Its been really useful information from all of you, and very very appreciated :) Hopefully I might meet some of you equestrian shooters one day, it would be good to shake your hands and thank you in person :)
 
If you're ever down West let me know :)

We always take those marmite shots too- my photographers know to take the normal kind of shots but have a free rein after that on what they take and can get as arty as they like! Some sell, some don't... quite often the shot you think is awful will sell and vice versa.
 
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