In preparation for our spring photo contest, my trusty marketing director Nicole Robertson suggested I share some of my helpful hints for taking great pictures.  I take most of the conformation shots for our website and sales ads, and, well, I’ve learned A LOT about what works and what doesn’t.  I’m no professional, to be sure, but I’ve got a formula that works for us.

1. Always take photos with the sun behind your back.  This rule of thumb applies to all photographpy unless you are trying to take pictures of the sun.

2. Light.  If at all possible, try to take photos on days with diffuse light, when the sun is hidden behind a thin layer of clouds and the sunlight is broken up instead of bearing down on you.  Intense sunlight can tend to make your photo look flat and non-dimensional, even to the point that the subject is washed out completely.  Another nice time of day is when the sun is very low in the sky and creates a golden light as its rays skip across the atmosphere.  This spreads the light more evenly and makes for fewer shadows to photoshop later!

3. Preparation is the key!  If you are going to go to all the trouble of shooting pictures in the expectation of selling or promoting your horse with them, then by all means get him spit-shined.  Take all that tack and turn-out knowledge you got from Pony Club and put it to good use!  Start with a bathed, clean and dry horse, clipped fetlocks and coronet bands, clipped ears and muzzle, trimmed bridle path and evenly pulled and trimmed mane no longer than 4 inches.  If it suits your horse to have his tail neatly banged, then do it now.  I never, ever do photographs meant for publication when the horse has a full winter coat.  The shiny, healthy, non-sunburnt coat is the most beautiful.  If your horse’s coat is sunburned, try bodly clipping him about ten days prior to your photo day and then keep him out of the sun while he grows in a lovely new coat of hair.  For extra shine, try wiping on some Shapley’s coat finisher.  To make muzzles glossy, apply a fine layer of vaseline.  Nothing too heavy, however!  I also wipe a bit of the vaseline around the eyes, where the hair is thin.  This softens the skin and makes it glow!

4. Another tip I have is to rub some of the vaseline into the leather of the bridle you’ll be using.  It really helps define the leather against the skin.  And, on the subject of bridles, use a bridle that is in good condition and not obviously aged.  The bright, stiff leather of a new bridle might need to be toned down and softened a bit with one or two generous Neatsfoot oil applications before it’s ready for a photo shoot.  Use a simple snaffle bridle, nothing more complicated.

5. To braid or not to braid, that is the question.  Honestly, it depends on my mood…and the wind.  It’s impossible to take good conformation pictures in a stiff wind.  In such events, you can guarantee that your horse’s mane, no matter how weighed down with glossy goos, will be standing straight up. And the tail will be tangled in the horse’s back legs.  I try to pick days when there is not even a breeze so the hair stays in place and braids are not needed.  If you do braid, make sure your braids are all the same size and are evenly placed.  Otherwise, your well-intentioned handiwork might be more of a distraction than an enhancement. 

6. Location.  I try to find a neutral background without a lot of clutter or a lot of different colors in it.  Our best photography backgrounds have been in front of an arena door which provides a solid background of white and accentuates the horse’s topline.  Level, hard ground is my preference for showing our horses, either on packed road base or on concrete.  If you don’t have these surfaces, mow the grass so we can see his ankles and feet!  Try to position your horse in such a way that there isn’t any vertical interference in the background, such as a telephone pole, or a tree, protruding out of his back or neck.  Vertical interference pulls your gaze towards it and competes with the harmonious, horizontal conformation of the horse.

7. Finally time to click the shutter!  The best conformation stance in which to show your horse is called the open stance.  In this position, the horse is standing laterally to you, with the legs on the off-side (the side facing away from you) showing between the legs on the near side (the side facing towards you).  I’ve shown an example here of the open stance, one you’ve seen a million times and perhaps didn’t quite know what it was called.  The photo below shows the open stance as performed by Carino OHF, an approved son of Coconut Grove.  All four legs are showing clearly, with the off-side legs appearing in between the near-side. Also of paramount importance is that the horse be standing squarely over his near foreleg, as Carino shows us here.  This shows the beauty of his shoulder conformation very clearly.  In the hind end, the horse is standing just forward of square on the off-side and just behind square on the near-side.  Carino is looking forward with his ears pricked and is showing off his long, lovely neck.  If the horse’s head were turned towards the camera, the plane of the photo would affected and the horse’s head, which would be closer to the camera, would look out of proportion.  The handler should have an item such as a rattle or a candy wrapper that he uses, just at the right moment, to get the horse’s ears up and his interest going forward.  Horses can lose interest in the item meant to pique their interest so have a few different things on hand and change them out.  One thing we like to use is a child’s pinwheel.  Keep it tucked in a back pocket until it is needed, then pull it out and give it a blow.  It’s almost guaranteed to produce a fantastic, interested expression. Take note of the background of this photo which is fairly uncluttered and mostly of horizontal makeup. It takes nothing away from the horse.