When taking photos of horses, one of the huge rules of thumb is to use a zoom lens. 100mm or more was a guideline I was once given and the longer the better. Wider angles distort the horse, often horribly. Huge noses and tiny legs... You see them everywhere in family pet snapshots and once you learn to see it, you find it often crops up in many artist's paintings and drawings because they were working from a photograph shot with a less than ideal zoom. I have dutifully stuck to this rule for ages with the exception of taking pictures in small spaces, such as the vet clinic exam and surgery rooms for documentary work.
In my quest to give the horse event competitor the best and most unique shots of their horses, I constantly experiment with angles, shutter speed, depth of field, light and now lenses. I spent many years searching for the best angles from which to shoot horses in action or just hanging out. I know pretty much all of the "ideal" angles for which breeds, types of events and actions. AKA, the shots competitors expect to see from that discipline. They get boring after a while, especially when I can do them without even thinking. I have begun pushing the envelope, experimenting with less than cliche pictures in venues where I can.
Over time I have tried to get in closer, pushing the limits of composition within the frame. I've tried slowing down the shutter speed to get interesting motion blurs. I also play with unique light when it's available and now I'm drawing back to show a place. Many show competitors are still looking for the same ol' same ol' and get uncomfortable with out of the norm shots. So I still strive to make them happy too but recently I have also been adding in a second camera with a wide angle lens to shake it up a little.
Seems that many are able to appreciate the unique angles better than some of my slow motion blur experiments and I've played enough with the wide angle lens to figure out some viewpoints that really work well and plenty that are still so very, very much to be avoided. I'm enjoying being able to create competition images with a sense of place, as well as showing off the equine athlete in good form.
In my quest to give the horse event competitor the best and most unique shots of their horses, I constantly experiment with angles, shutter speed, depth of field, light and now lenses. I spent many years searching for the best angles from which to shoot horses in action or just hanging out. I know pretty much all of the "ideal" angles for which breeds, types of events and actions. AKA, the shots competitors expect to see from that discipline. They get boring after a while, especially when I can do them without even thinking. I have begun pushing the envelope, experimenting with less than cliche pictures in venues where I can.
Seems that many are able to appreciate the unique angles better than some of my slow motion blur experiments and I've played enough with the wide angle lens to figure out some viewpoints that really work well and plenty that are still so very, very much to be avoided. I'm enjoying being able to create competition images with a sense of place, as well as showing off the equine athlete in good form.
While in New England I had the chance to be a second camera at the University of New Hampshire dressage show. I jumped on the chance since I had never officially shot at a dressage show before. Oh, I've shot plenty of dressage tests, but it's all been the dressage phase of horse trials or 3-day eventing and mostly only lower levels of it. I have also been to dressage shows and shot a few pix, but never as the Official Photographer all day long and never with a lot of the upper levels like Level 4 and above. Needless to say, I was quite excited at the prospect of shooting more than one horse at the Prix St. George, Intermediare and Grand Prix levels.
If you wish to see all the proofs from the UNH Dressage Show, the Official Photographer that I worked as a second camera for is Mystical Photography.
On the way back from the Colorado Horse Park 3-Day event, Amy and I stopped at Great Sand Dunes National Park in the San Luis Valley. When we arrived, it was dark and murky after a rather large thunderstorm had passed through but we went out and made the best of the flat light anyway. 
In a way it was a treat because the stream was running full tilt with rain water including small surges in the flow. This stream is often totally dry, but man on man it was flowing strong and it was COLD. Amy didn't give that away at all in her hunt for the perfect image to represent the detour.
I loved the water and the tangled grasses. 
Amy was mostly stalking sticks as I recall.
The Horse Trials and 3-Day Event at the Colorado Horse Park always makes my assistants and me work really hard for three days. The hours are long, the weather isn't always co-operative and the sleep is scarce after getting all the images downloaded, backed up and the batteries recharged every night. This year was no exception, however the skies were glorious. Every day brought a new sky.
Saturday afternoon's sky decided to cancel some of the last of the cross-country in the way of throwing down a bunch of lightning mixed in with some rain, hail and thunder. Once it was determined that the storm wasn't going to just go on by like most do, arrangements were quickly made to run the last hour and a half of the cross country phase in the morning before stadium started which meant we all got another crack at a glorious morning sky.
I had a date for another horse trials in Vermont. While I could sort them I really had to get to the home computer to do much of the actual preparation... not like I had much time around the the second event anyway. More long hours and driving time and airplane rides, some rather extended from their intended schedule due to more storms at every airport my plane had to visit. Either way, here are some of the skies from the CHP event. Many thanks to the wonderful event managers, Deeda Randal and Kari too for another great event and to Amy E. Riley and Lynne Glazer for assisting me in making all these wonderful images for the competitors.
