Selling Your Horse? Improve Your Photographs

At BestHorsesOnline, we are happy to be partnering with Barnmice to bring you the best possible classified advertising in the horse world.

Here are some tips we have compiled to help in improving your sale photographs:

The most important thing for a successful photo shoot of your horse is that he is “show ready.” This means that he is very well groomed and clipped neatly. This means that he is braided or has his mane pulled if appropriate. Your horse should be wearing clean leather tack and it’s a good idea to photograph your horse in a bridle instead of a halter because it looks much more elegant and gives you better control over the horse.

Choose a good background. A nice, clean uncluttered space with a freshly mowed lawn with no farm tractors or manure piles in site is appropriate. Don’t pose your horse near distracting objects such as a pole or tree that looks like it is growing out of his head.

Fill almost the entire frame with your horse. Up close is better then too far away. Your horse is a thing of beauty and you want to capture it. Plan where the sun will be. You want the sun shining on your horse from behind you. You do not want to take your photographs looking into the sun. Sunny days are great for photo shoots but overcast or cloudy days work just as well, and you don’t have to worry about where the sun is or about any shadows.

Have at least two helpers. One person to hold an pose the horse, and another who can act as an attention getter to get the horse to prick his ears forward. If anyone is to appear in the photos with the horse, they should be clean and neatly dressed themselves.

Plan to take a lot photos. Quite often you will have to take several dozen to get 2 or 3 perfect ones. You will get a lot of not so good ones, so please don’t use any of these in your sale ad. You are better off showing only 2 or 3 great photos that give a great impression of your horse then ten not so great ones that give a not so great impression of your horse.

Standing conformation shots are most commonly seen in stallion ads, but are also seen in horse classifieds. Make sure you know what your breed requirements are for the proper conformation pose. Head shots should be done on a slight angle rather then perfectly perpendicular to the horse’s head and don’t shoot a straight on view of the head as that can make the horse’s face look very long.

For under saddle action shots, you need to know the movements of your discipline so you can capture the right moment in time. It takes a lot of observation to know when to take the photo. For example, you do not want to take a canter photo when the horse is in the “downhill” phase of the canter stride.

With a combination of patience and practice, you will be able to make your horse look very photogenic in his sale photos and be able to show off just how wonderful your horse is.

Selling a horse? Click here to post your ad.