How to get the most out of your equine photography session.
Here are a few tips that will help you get the most out of your equine photography session. These tips will make your equine photographer’s job easier and you’ll be much happier with your results.
Bathe your horse.
Clean horses are pretty horses, pretty horses make pretty pictures. Before I arrive, please make sure your horse is clean. A shampoo bath, manes and tails brushed, white socks brightened, etc., goes a long way. While photography is art, I am not a magician. Us as photographers cannot make a dirty horse clean in post production.
Find the right background.
Backgrounds can make or break a good equine photography session. This is a fairly simple tip, simply make sure the background is free of any distractions. Make sure the background is appealing. Examples can be of a tree line, mountains, hills, pond, etc. Common distractions that hurt a good equine photo are horses, cattle, or dogs in the background, equipment, junk, etc.
Clean tack and equipment.
This is the time to grab your prettiest saddle and pad out of the tack room. Knock the dust off of your tack and even throw a fresh coat of neatsfoot oil on. Make your horse look professional, fit for the job that you’re marketing them for. A ranch horse in a ranch cutter saddle, rope horse in a roping saddle, reiner in a reining saddle, so on and so forth. This even goes for bridles, a finished rope horse, pictured in an O-ring snaffle doesn’t quite look the part. I advise to picture the horse in the bridle that they’re rode in daily.
Be Patient
No matter how broke a horse is, getting them set correctly can be a challenge. While we are picturing these horses, please be patient. It may take 20 resets until we get it right. Just take your time and I promise we will get “the one”. It is extremely easy to get frustrated, but I promise that a calm and cool environment is best for these horses.
Bonus tip– Conformation Pictures- use a small rope halter instead of a large weaver, buckle style halter. This makes post production halter removals much easier.
Pictures by Duke Marketing Agency. Horses owned by Luke Cook of Welch, Oklahoma.