Horsing Around - Tips and Tricks for Horse Photography

OK not wildlife but domesticated animals are interesting too .. so here are our top tips for horse photography:

Be careful! They are large, strong creatures that often take great delight in spooking at nothing. If you walk around the back of them, keep out of range. Wear strong boots - they love 'accidentally' stepping on your toes.

If the horse's ears aren't straight up and forward "like Batman's", forget it! 'Donkey Ear' pictures are not popular with equestrians. To get the horse's attention, get an assistant to stand out of frame in front of the horse and do something like this, very, very gently:
- shake jangly objects (like keys)
- sweep the ground with a broom
- play with something that rustles
- wave a carrot at them

Flash photography. It's for the confident, brave and/or stupid. Personally I never bother, but some people do (see end of article.) At big events, the horses are probably able to take it without spooking. ("They evolved to avoid wolves, wildcats and bears et al, none of which resembles a flashgun.")

For showjumping, I find myself using settings around f/5.6 at 1/300th or faster on my 70-200. Experiment to see (a) what aperture gives you enough DoF, and (b) how slow you can go with the shutter speed. Pictures that show a little motion around the feet are good to have!

If you're not doing event photography, but you have other commercial intentions, get model releases even if your pictures don't include any humans!

For inspiration, have a look at Horses by Yann Arthus Bertrand. He's the guy that does the open-air photographic exhibitions of his 'Earth from the Air' work, but he is also a master at portraits of all kinds. He uses a massive canvas backdrop and lights with two flashes, the results are quite stunning. (We also recommend his book Being a Photographer which sounds pretentious, but isn't.)

Great new BBC show - Hands on Nature

Watched the first episode yesterday and it's brilliant. I only found it by chance as for some reason best known to those in BBC marketing, it doesn't seem to have had any publicity at all. Criminal! Similarly, it's on at a funny time - 3pm weekdays. It deserves a better slot than that. Anyway, hosted by BBC wildlife expert and photographer Chris Packham, it takes us on a tour of UK wildlife hotspots - a photographer's dream.

As Chris himself says: "Nature needs to be experienced first hand. You have to be able to touch it, see it, smell it and exercise your curiosity. And that's what Hands On Nature is all about."

We agree. In fact that's why we got into wildlife photography in the first place. By the time you read this, the series may be half way through but there's an excellent website to back it up where you can find even more information.

Here's the link to the Beeb's Hands on Nature website: Hands On Nature.

Wildfile - Mammoth UK Wildlife Links

That's mammoth as in huge. Wildfile.co.uk is a quite stupendous collection of links relating to UK wildlife and environmental websites. 41 different categories! The wildlife photography section is excellent. The whole site is a goldmine.

Interesting comment regarding David Bellamy on their site, "Climate change denier David Bellamy must go."

Check out the whole lot.

Puffins on Skomer

Off the Pembrokeshire coast are two islands, Skomer and Skokholm. Both are part of the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, and form part of one of the most important seabird breeding areas in Europe. Manx Shearwaters, Storm Petrels, Wheatears, Oystercatchers, Meadow Pipits, Skylarks, Guillemots, Razorbills, Peregrines and Ravens all breed on these islands.

And so do Puffins, and it is these that are highlighted in Amateur Photographer magazine this week. Marine biologist Matt Doggett has a selection of great puffin shots published in the portfolio section. They are well worth a look! The shot above won the student category in the British Ecological Society's competition this year.

Skomer is definitely on our list to visit! (Good web sites: Skomer & Skokholm)

Wildlife Photographer of the Year: Portfolio 15

Just received this year's Wildlife Photographer of the Year book (Portfolio 15.) Guess what - it is stunning! Joe & Ann McDonald - favourites of mine - have three pictures in it this year. Bence Máté's pictures - he has the cover - are wonderful too. You can buy it for £15 at Amazon at the moment:



(one day I will figure out how to get this link in the right place...)

WildArena Seminars

WildArena still have a couple of places left for their Autumn seminars. The dates are:

Nature in Focus - Saturday 26th November and Saturday 3rd December.

In The Company of Wolves - Saturday 10th December

I have used WildArena before, on their Leopard and Birds of Prey days, and they were excellent. More details at www.wildarena.com.