As I was riding yesterday, the BO told me that her new tenant is a photog.  Yes, that's correct:  she has two suckers paying her $415 a month, each, for laissez-faire shit care board and another sucker paying who knows to rent her pool house.  When we first moved here, she tried to get hubs and me to move there.  Uh.  No.

She said that the tenant was really interested in coming by and photographing the horses and us riding.  Point blank:  I do not give my permission for a stranger to come up and take Archie's pictures.  It's not just me being psychotic, though that's a part of it.  What if she isn't a horse person and he damages her camera?  Or she tries to get action shots and he falls or trips?  I thought about it for a second, thinking about my initial hesitance to have someone around the Kid when I'm not there, and about my desire to get riding photos.  I told the BO to get an idea of cost.

BO's response was.. um.. naive, at best.  She said, and I quote, "She's a really nice girl, I'm sure she's really reasonable."  Like the two go hand-in-hand.  Like if you charge a lot for your work as a photographer, you must not be nice or reasonable.

It kills me that I don't have the good horse friends here that I had in Augusta.  Lisa rode western but was a budding photographer, so it was no problem to have her come out and take photos of my riding the Kid.  She also had a small herd and I was able to go ride the dirt roads in BFE with them.  But I have all the equipment to take the photos and no one who would feel comfortable taking them.  Maybe the chick who I helped move barns.  D's equine photos are notorious for having me in the up of a posting trot or chopping off Archie's nose or ears or face.  But if he takes a hundred, some of them should be good, right?

So, I started thinking about having this photog come out (if she is actually dirt cheap).  About what tips I would give for decent (not amazing) horse photography:

• Follow the same crop lines of the body as for people.
• Treat the face like a human face:  no missing ears, eyes or noses.
• While almost any point of the trot stride is great, the ideal is with all four off the floor.
• If a person is on board, unless they are purposely in two-point, get the down of the trot.  Standing in the saddle just looks weird.
• Portraiture of ponies should attempt to have the ears forward.  It might look staged, but it also looks a hell of a lot better than ears all helter-skelter. 
• Sometimes, the bloopers are the best.  Bucks, rears, funny expressions.  

Professional

I miss you, stone wall jump.

Handsome fellow.

D's Photography

His ears are forward!

Up.

Up (at the canter, bulge?)

Our butts in a spook.

Lisa's Photo