Capturing Memories
How to Photograph
Your Child and Their Horse
So your child has a new horse, and brimming with excitement asks you to take a picture of them together. You take one look at your small child next to this huge horse and wonder how in the world you can accomplish this without frightening the horse or harming your child.
Sitting atop this steed, feet in stirrups and all dressed up your child patiently waits for you to snap the photograph. Not knowing what to expect you simply beg off and promise you will take their picture together soon. What to do...
Familiarize Yourself With The Horse First
Horses, just like people, have likes and dislikes. Our daughter had a beautiful horse called 'Little Guy' who was anything but little. Standing some 17 hands tall, Little Guy certainly intimidated me.
It turns out the horse didn't like people around who smoked, and he let them know it. He also didn't like quick or erratic movements near him. What he did like was for you to take some time to let him smell you, look at you, and watch you.
Soon Little Guy and I were fast friends and he would let me feed him carrots and pet him. Once he was comfortable with me then I could begin the process of photographing our child and their horse together.
Get Them Used To The Camera
Next I took some time to just take pictures around the barn when horse and child were working together. Using flash and just being around them they soon became engrossed in what they were doing and forgot about me.Now I was ready to start shooting pictures of them together. At first from a ways off, and then slowly moving closer and closer in. By now everyone understood what was going on.
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Think About Light First
Most of us don't really think much about the light around us, but without that light we wouldn't see much. More importantly, the light affects how things look to us.Have you noticed how things look near sunset as the sun is setting and the light is reflected off of the clouds? Everything looks crisp and sharp and well defined. Contrast that with early morning when everything looks soft, gentle and somewhat indistinct.
Your child will be riding their horse inside a barn in a ring, and here the light will be diffused and not very bright. A flash will be necessary, but remember that the light from the flash unit only goes a short distance, so using a flash from 40 feet away will have little effect on your picture. If you need to be further away from your subject use a tripod and open the lens as wide as you can. You can also adjust the ISO setting to a higher number as well to get more light for your picture.
Outside, in the show ring or on a riding path the light will be much brighter depending upon the time of day and weather. Here there will be more light than you want, and it will cause shadows to drop across your childís face. If you can get close enough you can use fill flash to remove the shadows and a larger f-stop number to limit the amount of light the camera lets in.
Compose Your Picture Carefully
Because you will not always be able to be close up look around and see what is in the background when you are taking your pictures. One of the golden rules of photography is to decide before you take the photograph what you want the person looking at the photograph to focus on.This will tell you where to focus the camera, and what to do about the background. For example, you may want to use a wide open lens, lower the ISO, focus on their faces and have the background out of focus so that your subjects, the child and horse, are in focus and nothing behind them distracts the viewerís eyes.
Because you will be dealing with a wide range of situations photographing your child and their horse you may want to take a really good online digital photography class to learn how best to use your camera to capture those great images.
Think About Parts Not The Whole
Some of the best photographs are pictures where there is nothing in the frame except your childís face close to and next to the horse's head. Or find a high vantage point where you can look down on horse and rider and focus on them from a unique perspective.
Even something as simple as a close up photograph of your child putting their foot into the stirrup where all you see is the boot, stirrup and some of the childís leg can make an interesting picture.
Use The Rule Of Thirds
The rule of thirds simply means that when you look through the viewfinder of your camera divide the image into equal parts using two vertical and two horizontal lines. Whatever you want to be the focus of your photograph should be placed anywhere on the horizontal or vertical lines, or where they intersect. The center and corners should be avoided.The best way to demonstrate this is to have you look at an interesting photograph, turn it over and think about what in the photograph captured your attention. Turn the photograph back over and see if what drew your attention was located in the center of the photograph or in a corner. Most likely it wasnít there, but rather along one of the lines I described above.
Take Lots Of Photographs
The last bit of advice is to take lots and lots of photographs. Study them carefully and see what you like and dislike about the picture. Did the photograph draw your eyes to where you wanted them? Is the focus of the picture what you were looking for?Over time you will learn how to take better and better photographs of your child and their horse. Soon enough you will have some really great photographs to place in a beautiful leather album you can place on your coffee table to share with friends and family.