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How To Take Horse Pictures - Page 1 of 2

As we all know, there's a difference between a horse picture and a good horse picture. Below are some tips on how you can take a better picture of your horse, with examples of good and bad pictures.

Fill The Frame

Fill the frame! When you look through your camera's viewfinder, your main subject (which, in this case, is your horse) should fill the vast majority of what you're seeing.

At right: In this photo, the horse is overwhelmed by the pasture and sky.

To fill the frame:

  • Move closer to your subject.
  • Use the camera's zoom.
  • Crop the photo: If you simply can't fill the frame with your subject, you may want to go ahead and take the shot but then crop the picture later so that the main subject fills the photo. In fact, many professional photographers feel that most photos benefit from at least a little cropping.

At right: Much better! In this photo the photographer used the zoom and also
cropped the picture after it was taken. This resulted in a much better photo.

How to take horse pictures: A horse far away in the picture

Take a horse picture close to the horse

Avoid Extreme Front Angle Shots

When taking a picture of the whole horse, you should rarely, if ever, take a photo of the horse from an extreme forward angle. It may work out fine to take a photo of the whole horse from a slight forward angle, but steep forward angles can make the entire front end of the horse appear overly large and out of proportion.

Most of the time try to take your photos from the side of the horse, or better yet, from the side and slightly behind. If you do take a forward angle shot, be very cautious about your angle and how it makes the horse appear in the completed photo.

Do not take a horse picture from an extreme forward angle   Photo of a horse from a slight forward angle

This is about as bad as you can get. Simply put, the horse looks awful.

 

Much better! This photo was taken from a slight forward angle.


Feet Close To Square

If the photo is of a horse standing still, it's usually most flattering for the horse to be standing with its feet close to square (front legs even with each other, back legs even with each other). The horse's legs do not have to be exactly even with each other, just close. This horse's feet are close to even

Ears Up!

Ears up! A horse with its ears back, down, or to the side in a picture looks like a person with a frown on its face.

Unless you are specifically capturing a horse's emotions where the ears' being back or down is appropriate, you will want to make sure the ears are up.

Two horses, one with her ears up and one with his ears back

These horses both have attractive heads and personalities, but
the Paint horse on the right certainly doesn't show it in this picture.


How To Take Horse Pictures (you are on page 1 of 2)
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Tips For Digital Camera Photos

  • If you're taking photos with a digital camera, don't take the photos by looking through the LCD screen most digital cameras have on the back. Instead, turn off the screen and look through the viewfinder. With many models of digital cameras taking photos by using the screen causes the camera to respond more slowly after you press the shutter button. The slow response is only a fraction of a second, but it can easily be enough time for a horse or something else in the picture to change and ruin your shot.
  • Take lots and lots of photos, keep only the good ones (which probably won't be very many), and delete the others (which will be most of what you take). This is one of the biggest "secrets" used by professional photographers.
  • Even if you just want a single picture, use "burst mode." Many digital cameras have a wonderful feature called burst mode or something similar. With this feature, you press and hold the shutter button and the camera takes several photos in rapid succession. Even with a photo subject that is standing still this can be enormously useful. The horse may flick its ears, stomp its foot, or swish its tail, but then return to a nice stance just a second later. With burst mode, your chances of catching the good moments go up, and you can simply delete the bad ones.
  • Today, even inexpensive "point and shoot" digital cameras considered to be in the "family" class can take sharp photos that enlarge well.

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