Starting A Career In Horse Photography
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him pose. It has been proven possible by a lady equestrian photographer from Pasadena, California, whose photos are cherished by famous people. The photographer, whose motor home office can be seen parked at tracks and show rings all over the state and who even turned her lens on the riders at the Olympics in Montreal including Britain’s Princess Anne, started her career with a loaned out camera from a Pasadena City College photography class. Further your knowledge on paintings at horse portrait artists.
Horses were the easiest to shoot for practice when she attended photography class at PCC after graduating from Pasadena High School. The Eaton Canyon Riding Stables were like a second home to her since she was 10 years old. The horses at the nearby stables served as good subjects for her homework, for which she would take her borrowed camera on the weekends. Her first photo sold, and she was on her way to a full-blown career, giving up music, art and journalism.
At a horse show in Santa Barbara she was hired as assistant to two famous equestrian photographers with whom she travelled all over the country for two years, bringing horses in focus at shows, tracks and state fairs. When that gig ended, she found another photographer pair to be apprenticed to, who focused on California shows. She gets help from her mother for business things, so that she can concentrate on snapping photos with her Swedish camera with German lens.
Six-foot jumps and winning a race by the nose are her trademark shots. However, she also has a knack for getting horses on all fours to pose. Some horses can be real camera whores, too. These are the horses that perk their ears or raise their heads after discovering a camera is focused on them. Then again, there are horses that could care less about being photographed. If you like this article on paintings visit creating oil paintings from photos for more education.
Good photos don’t just grow on trees. The best shots of hunters and jumpers, on the one hand, are those of them mid-air with legs bent at just the right angle. Tennessee walkers pictured at their best have high action with their front hoofs and an over reaching hoof with their hind legs. The best angle for a stock horse is stopping in a slide, and for the saddle horse with head and legs held high. She has been highly recognized for her photos of the Peruvian Paso, a South American endangered species that enthusiasts are trying to increase in number. It would be best to snap a picture when their forelegs are pointed away from their bodies. Their value increases with the white ponchos and elaborate gear sported by their riders.
She has found photography a good way to meet celebrity horse enthusiasts. She has even been able to meet royalty. At the Montreal Olympics she was able to photograph Princess Anne, which brought her to the side of the Queen. When she asked the Queen if it made her nervous to watch her daughter taking the high jumps, Queen Elizabeth replied that yes she did. With fork lift photography, she got a change of pace, even though she also swims, back packs, bicycles, pans for gold and sometimes even rides a horse.
The photographer does not have to wait for the fork lift to perk its ears.
