For Photographers : How to include horses in your sessions when you aren’t an equine photographer
Every year around this time I see an influx of non-equine photographers doing sessions with horses, mostly for graduating seniors who want to include their horse in their photos. When I see posts from these sessions, as a long time equine photographer and horse lover, there are often quite a few things that make me cringe inside. So I wanted to make a blog post with a few tips for non-horse people/photographers on how to photograph horses.
First of all, who am I and why should you trust what I have to say? Well I have been a full time equine photographer for 7 years now and a hard core “horse girl” for basically my whole life. I have photographed hundreds of horses and have a wealth of experience.
I want to break this down into two main issues that I see, and then a few tips and tricks at the end.
The first main issue I see is
Safety
Horses can be incredibly dangerous and unpredictable animals. Even with my level of experience, safety is still always my number one concern at any of my sessions.
Contracts and Liability
If you are going to be photographing with a horse, you need a rock solid contract, ideally created by a lawyer in your area. A few important things to consider are a clause talking about equipment (helmets and proper footwear) that absolves you of liability if your clients choose to not wear a helmet or proper footwear. A clause also giving you the ability to cancel a session if the animal is behaving dangerously is important. I am NOT a lawyer and you should not copy any wording from this blog. Please have a lawyer draft your contracts.
Your typical photography/business liability insurance likely does not cover instances of working with horses, as this is higher risk. Please check with your insurance company and purchase additional liability insurance if needed.
Client safety
The number one thing I see is unsafe footwear. Walking barefoot or in open toed shoes around horses is INCREDIBLY dangerous, and even if this is something your client insists they do all the time, you are putting yourself at risk by having them do this at a session (yes, we all think that our clients would never sue us but your client doesn’t control what their insurance company will do). If your client is going to be barefoot around their horse, it should only be for very brief instances when both the horse and your client are standing still. At any point when the horse is moving, they should either be being handled by someone else who has proper foot wear, or your client should put different footwear on.
Horse knowledge
Someone at the session should have knowledge of horse behaviour and body language. This doesn’t have to be you (the photographer), it can be your client or a third party/assistant, but it’s important that someone is able to pay attention to the horses body language and behaviour and advocate for them in the session. Horses can get tired, frustrated, scared, angry etc. and knowing what any of these emotions looks like in a horse is important to ensure that everyone stays safe and the horses well being is considered at all times.
My second point would be that it is as important to make the horse look good in the photos as your client/the person. If your client has requested to include their horse in photos, it is because that horse is incredibly important to them, and I promise you they care that their horse is photographed well, and as a horse person, they will notice things that you don’t.
2. Distortion
Horses are inherently very awkward creatures. Ever tried to take a selfie with one and you end up with these huge ears and a giant head that looks nothing like your nobel steed in real life? This is because your phone camera uses a wide angle lens, which is about anything below 35mm focal length (though for horses I would extend this to 50mm because they are so prone to distortion). These are the lenses adored by landscape photographers, because they capture a wide perspective, allowing them to photograph an entire landscape in one image. But they also create distortion, making the elements in the foreground appear larger and those far away appear smaller. This effect is magnified with the shorter your focal length is.
There are a few ways to tackle this problem. The first would be to change up your gear! I recommend anything about 85mm to allow your to best capture your subjects, although be careful not to go too far in the other direction (with very long focal lengths you can end up with lens compression). The 85mm, 135mm, 70-200mm, and 300mm lenses are all excellent and tried and true within the equine photography industry, so you can be sure that you will be capturing the most “true to life” versions of your models. BUT if you have some lenses with shorter focal lengths and aren’t ready to upgrade yet, you can get away with it using a few simple tricks. Pose the horse perpendicular to where your camera is pointed (head or butt is not facing you but their full-length body is visible) or focus on close-up, intimate details, where perspective and distortion are minimized because there are fewer elements in the image to compare your subjects to. Or, you can use the lens as it was intended and place your subjects further back to create a landscape-type image, capturing all their beautiful surroundings.
3. Expression
If I see one more photo of a horse with their ears back, I might scream. It is the equivalent of taking a photo of a human scowling and then posting it on the internet. It’s not flattering. When photographing a horse you should be looking for ears forwards, and a soft bright eye. Both ears back is an immediate indication that the horse is unhappy, as is the whites of their eye showing. One ear off to the side can indicate that they are relaxed but it’s best to aim for both ears forwards.
So how do you do this? Bring an assistant. Even with decades of horse experience, I usually have one with me because an extra pair of hands is helpful. It is their job to get the horses ears forward and looking where you want them to. This can be achieved by making noise (shake a bag of treats, crinkle a plastic water bottle/bag, play horse noises etc.) or getting their attention visually (jumping up and down, waving something around, using a mirror or light reflector to catch their attention).
Am I the police on how you should photograph horses? No, and I do believe rules are meant to be broken but I also think that the ability to break rules and try different things can only come from knowledge of what those rules are in the first place. The reason I think I see so many “bad” horse photos are because most photographers aren’t taking the time to research what makes a “good” horse photo. So I hope that this helped someone out there and I can cringe a little bit less when I open up instagram!
A few last tips and tricks -
Make sure someone (either you or your client) has horse fly spray (different than human bug spray)
Bring horse cookies, but use them sparingly - horses get greedy and more importantly slobbery
Don’t let them graze until the very end, they will get green lipstick and get it all over your client
On that note, bring a lot of wet wipes and cloths
Horses are like toddlers, their attention span is short and once they are done, they are done. Working with a mad and frustrated horse is never fun so try to keep them happy throughout and call it quits when you need to
