Plan ahead for horse photography sessions

By Marty Metzger
North Forty News

Photographing horses, like parenting, requires patience, multi-tasking, familiarity with the critters, and enough stamina to keep pace with frenetically moving targets.

Everyone has seen pictures of horse aliens - frightening creatures that carry gigantic heads around on pencil thin necks and miniscule torsos stuck atop squatty legs. Equines in motion can sometimes mimic hot candle wax trailing across grandmother's antique lace table runner.

While some photographic faux pas can be resolved by upgrading camera equipment (or reading directions that came with the old stuff), most are quite basic.

Reserve adequate time and choose a time of day with the best natural lighting. Don't use a red barn as background for a blood bay or red chestnut horse or a dark stand of trees behind a black one. Do use these darker colored props with light duns, palominos, light grays or whites. Winter snows as framing for the latter results in a head-scratching "Where'd he go?"

If you want the horse to behave for the session, avoid photographing during feeding times. When Prince or Beauty hears the rattle of grain cans or sees herd mates downing his or her fair share, it'll be all systems go. Your assistant holding the straining lead line, or rider mounted on said ants-in-pants pony, will cut loose with phrases such as, "I am trying to turn him! Stop it, stop it! Back up! Whoa! Help!"

With young, silly or very green animals, a companion positioned very close by but out of lens range might help settle herd-bound nerves. Just give in and save training for training sessions, not photo sessions. Remember, discretion is the better part of valor.

Some horses must just be camera shy. The very same fiery steed that prances and snorts or poses like a Greek statue when off-camera will stand spraddle-legged, head hung low on-camera. This slack-jawed nag droops like the centerfold for Tranquilizer Magazine. A quick series of turns and trotting up and back a couple times should ring his wake-up alarm.

Positioning legs properly according to each breed standard (parked for Saddlebreds, for example) should be well learned ahead of time. In lieu, a nice, square stance presents a noble, alert carriage and complements all conformation types. Backing a horse into the stance usually works better than leading forward.

Speaking of conformation, accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. To minimize a disproportionately large noggin, stand behind the shoulder. Standing in front of it will make heads and forehands appear larger and hindquarters tiny. Experiment with angles through the viewfinder and select the best one for camouflaging individual faults.

To get ears forward, a clicker, whistle or coins in a can are preferable aids to visuals. Waving grass will make the horse move towards it, lips snapping. Flapping rags or the like will incite a backward flight. Be sure to position the sound maker directly ahead of the head's desired direction.

Candid or artsy photos present opportunities to think outside the box and are just plain fun. Now's the time to aim at muzzles of handlebar-mustached mares, snap away as that foal tries to nurse on the riding mower (saw it happen), or click off a whole string of the old gelding on his knees straining everything he has to reach that greener grass yonder the fence line.

Group photos are particularly challenging. It takes a hard-praying saint to accomplish a perfect one. Multiple people and horses all holding still, flattering angles for everyone and good lighting on each happening simultaneously is ... well, forget it. If most equine ears are up, some human faces are showing and nothing undesirable is dropping from beneath tails, consider the image suitable for framing.

When it comes to frames, be innovative. Barn wood is great for equine photos, and you might personalize one by attaching a braid of hair from the horse's mane or tail along one side. Select matting and frame that highlight subject colors of horse, tack, rider's apparel, or a baby blue sky with butter crème clouds backdrop.

Always, always, always identify horses by registered as well as barn names; date photo by month and year; indicate city/state/country of location and owner. So many old photos could be used for photographic record of events, family trees and the like if only someone had taken the time to make a record on the back. Simply writing "Thunder" or "me and Dobbin" doesn't do it. A hundred years from now, no one will know who "me" was. A proper I.D. might read "Dominique Reynolds on her reg. Saddlebred mare Grassland's True Blue (aka "Truly") at Larimer County Fair, Loveland, Colo., Aug. 1, 2009.

Of course, digital cameras and professional equipment are each a world unto themselves. But even with a humble and low-tech, one-use camera it's possible to get beautiful, treasured photos of horses by using imagination, patience and a keen eye.