First Horse Shoot

Kemble3

Kemble3

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Ian
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A couple of shots from this morning equine shoot. First time shooting (not literary) horses commercially and boy, not an easy job especially for an indoor studio junkie like me. As always, C & Cs most welcome.




 
I'll be surprised if she likes the first one due to the position of the ears.

#2 has a good head position but there's some strange body shape going on in the background and the chin's cropped :)

Not as easy as it looks :)
 
digging the look on the first one, ears could be tricky but thats not my thing

second has something odd in the eye?
 
Thank you for your thoughts, and you being honest with your C&C is what I need. Have another horse shoot booked for next week and I need all the help I can get.
 
I am not an expert photographer but know a thing or two about horses... so, the first is about the most unflattering angle you could possibly shoot a horse from - sorry, I'm not being nasty just trying to be helpful. The second is quite a nice head shot. As someone else mentioned, try to make sure that you get all the bits (lip) in and, although the white in the eye is perhaps a reflection or maybe white visible in the horse's eye (?), it might look better if you just cloned that out.

Horses are very very difficult to photograph. There is someone on here (sorry I can't remember who) who does professional horse photography and their work is a great source of inspiration. You can also have a look on the net maybe using key words like "professional equestrian photographer" - that doesn't guarantee you'll only get professionals but I'm sure you can tell the difference.

Head shots are probably the "easiest". For the whole horse you need to try and get further back so that you're not looking "up" at the horse. If the rider is on the horse you could get them to get the horse to stand "square and collected" or perhaps an extended trot if the horse does a good one. With a lot of practice you can get very arty with "bits" of the horse; I've seen some fabulous results.

Good on you for trying and keep up the hard work!
 
I agree with most of the comments above. Not easy animals to photograph but keep going, they can be really rewarding, so carry on experimenting.
 
As others have said the first is a bit over exposed/over flashed but as to the wide angle/unflattering shots I wouldn't completely agree as it is sometimes possible to get a quirkier shot using this method but it has to be spot on - it's also good to push the boundaries and do something different imo.

For a shot including the complete horse it's better to stick on something like a 70-200mm and step right back so you don't get the distortion, it is also handy for separating the horse\rider from the background if you have enough space which also gives the image some context.

Horses also benefit from lower lighting such as in the evening as it can give them better definition and you can then start playing with shadows and composition:

Spanner-66.jpg


Finally, for horse and rider portraits I like to see a bit more interaction that shows the bond between the two subjects and this can be achieved in a couple of ways - either them riding or a more intimate portrait such as the following shots:

Millenium_web_version.jpg


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Kathermans, thanks for the comments, really useful stuff and I appreciate the time you took over your C&Cs. Thanks for the link too.

AlistairD & Natalie, thanks for your comments, I agree that the angle is somewhat strange but my client seems to love the shot, (Albeit a toned down version) and I’m going on the premise the customer is always right :bonk:. I also agree horses are certainly not an easy subject to photograph. I was well outside my comfort zone that day.

Hacker, Some great work of yours here, thank you for shearing, if I can achieve something close to your work and I’d be very happy. Your comments will come in very handy next week.
 
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