Photographing Horses

Does your client want to include their horse in an upcoming session with you? Horses are beautiful, majestic creatures, but they’re not easy to photograph, especially if you’re unfamiliar with being around them. Here are a few of my best tips to keep you and your clients safe while doing a session with their horses.

Keep your Distance

Horses are dangerous, and if you don’t have a lot of experience around them, then I highly suggest keeping a safe distance between you and the horses the entire time during the shoot. The owner and/or designated handlers should be the only ones leading or holding the horse. If you are working with a lot of photography equipment like reflectors or lights, make sure you introduce those slowly and let the horse get comfortable. Always try to stay in front of the horse where they can clearly see you.

Ask for Help

Have your client bring somebody to the session to help with the horse: their horse trainer, a barn buddy, a riding friend of theirs… anyone with horse experience that they trust with their horse. This person can help hold the horse during outfit changes and will help get the horse’s ears forward when you are taking pictures. Why ears forward? The horse’s owner will want an engaged, attractive facial expression from the horse in every image. Typically horses turn both ears forward when they are interested in something. I bring an assistant to every shoot of mine to help get the horse’s ears forward by using sounds, food, motion, and flashy objects to get the horse to look in the direction that I want them to.

Image Selection

After the session, while you’re culling and editing, look for images where the horse’s neck is relaxed, their ears are forward, and their legs are squarely underneath them. If the head is too high, the horse could look more like a giraffe. If the eyeballs are bulging out of the head, the horse was not relaxed with a pleasing expression on its face. If their legs are splayed in different directions, they won’t look balanced. Revealing the right type of images to your client will result in a successful sale of the pictures!

Looking for more advice? Check out this on-demand video course on “How to photograph horses for the non-equine photographer” with demonstrations that include:

• 33 minutes of detailed instruction
• complete equipment & gear resource list & showcase
• safety practices & liability issues (live showcase with the horse)
• how to photograph horse & subject together
• live shooting & posing instruction
• culling a horse session: what to keep, what to delete, & what to edit
• lens distortion issues with lens choice during a horse session