Equine Photography

 

Some musings on some of the more interesting things that I've photographed.

After I graduated from the university with my photography degree, I went on to a dedicated photography school for a more technical, in depth training. After getting these two degrees in photography, I really needed to work. Preferably in my chosen field as a photographer. So as luck would have it, I was offered a job in the great state of Ohio photographing horses. Now I grew up on a farm in West Virginia and my brother owned horses, so I was familiar with them but I wouldn’t say that I loved horses or had any desire to be around them for any length of time (memories of being on a run away horse comes to mind).

But again, I needed a job, this was photography and it seemed interesting – so I took it.

I moved to Ohio and started working for a photographer who specialized in photographing horses. I traveled throughout the state shooting every horse show, harness race and rodeo that I could fit into my schedule. I was on the road three or four times a week including weekends. Anything horse related, I shot it.

Of course, at this point, I knew how to take pictures but now I had to learn how to make the horse look his best (ears up, feet squared, quarter angle view to show all four feet, etc.). I learned the difference in how each breed of horse runs and when to take the picture in order to show that difference. I had to photograph each horse in a way to bring out that breed’s best traits. Then there were the action shots, the horses running and jumping, the barrel racing, the bull riding, the bucking broncos and the “photo finish” at the end of each of the harness races. My favorite was Barrel Racing because there’s just one moment in time when the rider and the horse are in perfect unison as they’re rounding that last barrel and you can see all of their hard work and experience working together to get around that barrel..., all caught in that one split second in time. These events taught me the correct timing needed to capture that “peak of the action” for this sport. 

Now there were a few downsides to the job. Such as: getting physically thrown out of the rodeo ring by a large cowboy working security (because I wasn’t wearing my cowboy hat…yes I had to look the part and wear the hat and boots), avoiding a very angry bull in the ring who had already dispatched his rider and almost getting blindsided by a runaway horse and harness buggy during a race (it was early in my training and I was focused on the winning horse, not the one coming up on the outside rail where I was standing).

Also, I only got paid when we sold the images that we shot, so it was to my advantage to get the best shot possible in every situation or it was a waste of time.

Again, I wasn’t really a “horse person” but I enjoyed this job and what I learned regarding action photography became a good solid foundation for all of my later martial arts and sports imagery. Overall it was an interesting experience and I met a lot of great people who were very passionate about horses and I learned more than I’ll ever need to know about horses and equine photography.

DCF