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How to Photograph Foals Part 2

May 9, 2011 00:56 by Jaime

Moving on to other Foal Shots

So you read Part 1, and you have a nice digital SLR camera with a few lenses. You want to get the front views to show off. How do you do that? Learning to recognize the correct pose of the foal is again essential. Since most babies don't know showmanship, patience is again a key element, as you must wait for the foal to get into position, by accident. The other elements from Part 1, such as lighting and camera position, will remain the same.

So what about the camera requirement? What's that all about? In order to keep everything in proper proportions, you need to shoot at about 70mm or greater. Most point and shoot cameras are equipped with wide angle lenses and rarely reach this range. This means you will need a telephoto lens. I have a 70-300mm zoom lens that works well for baby shots as it lets me stay a bit further away if I need to.

When working with this type of equipment, you open yourself up to many more options and poses for your pictures. For this article, I am going to focus on the front 3/4 shot that's popular amongst stock breeds for showing off face markings, muscling, and straight legs. When viewed straight on, a horse posed correctly for a front 3/4 shot will almost appear to have the same distance left to right between all four legs, (this is, of course, a simple illusion of two dimensional pictures). In a perfect set up, both gaskins and both forearms will be completely visible without any overlapping. The horse's neck will come straight out of his body and he will NOT be looking at the camera, he'll be looking straight. The camera will be right in front of the shoulder, and the horse will be at an angle to the camera.

Three Quarter Shot?

So what angle do you need? The misnomer 3/4 shot implies a 45 degree angle but that isn't quite right. The actual angle will depend slightly on the size of the horse and how he's set up, so try to stick with the tips I outlined above (equi-distant legs, gaskins visible, etc) instead of focusing on an exact angle.

They are Babies!!

So after you've read all this good advice about perfect and proper posing for 3/4 shots, go out to the field and then be easy on yourself! They are babies. They won't set up perfect every time. Just go with it. At liberty foal pictures are about the "total good" of the shot and are rarely expected to be perfectly posed.

Foal picture example sorrel filly	We can use the picture of the sorrel filly here to demostrate a few tips from this article. First, she is doing a good job of looking "out of her body" instead of at the camera. That's something that is often hard to catch since the camera is so interesting to look at! This concept lets the viewer see the baby's neck. But this pose does a very poor job of showing off all four of her legs. It almost creates the illusion of three legs! We'd like to avoid that if we can. The basic problem here is that the filly is too straight to the camera. Imagine if you are the photographer and it would be possible to move about two steps to your right. All four legs would become visible and much more of the foal's neck would be visible. Of course there's a good chance that by the time you get over there, she will have moved!
getting closer!	The picture of the dark buckskin filly is an example of a pretty good foal shot. Again, she is looking out of her body - not at the camera - and her legs are all visible. It could have been better if her forearm didn't cover her gaskin and you could see more of her neck if she was looking slightly more to her left, but overall, it's a fairly attractive foal picture.
	This bay filly exhibits a nice expression with her neck straight out of her body looking just past the camera somewhere. Her neck is visible and the front legs look just wonderful. I would say those qualities merit saving this shot from the recycle bin. What could make it better though? The filly could make it better by straightening up her hind legs a bit. The photographer could have improved the shot by taking another step to the right, as the angle is just the tiniest bit too straight.
	I have included the palomino colt's picture to show how breaking the rules can sometimes still be attractive. Really, he is much too perpendicular to the camera...it's isn't a profile and it isn't a front shot - what is it? His head is cocked around and his neck can't be seen at all. But he's a baby, with an attractive face, and it still makes a sharable picture...it's just not one I'd let stand alone as a potential buyer's only resource for evaluating his conformation! Remember your goals and the expectations of your viewer when you are both shooting and selecting the keepers later.