Hello!

Saddlebreds4me · Oct 28, 2008

Hi Everyone!

I'm new here and I am hoping to learn a lot from everyone here on this forum. I've been taking photos for about two years but I've had no formal training and have just been "winging it" so to speak. My subjects of choice are both American Saddlebred and Morgan horses in motion as well as head shots. I've literally been working on timing for the last year. Unlike other breeds, Saddlebreds and Morgans in my show world typically have lots of motion. I've been trying my best to capture this. I practice at my own barn all the time, however, the indoor arena makes it challenging from a lighting perspective. So today I purchased a Nikkor f/2.8 80-200mm lens and I can't wait to try it out.

This is what we typically are "shooting for", pun intended - now I just need to work on all of the other stuff like framing, lighting and speed to get the clearest shots possible.

This first photo (my mare with an 11 year old girl riding her) was taken without a flash, which I prefer, especially when you are on the rail vs. the in-ring photographer. I know it's dark but I kind of like that effect in this particular photo, is that ok? I also realize I sort of cut the top of her head off - but I'm not so sure I even looked through the view finder - I turned and snapped the shutter as they were making their victory pass.

This photo was taken in our indoor arena - you can see I got the timing but it's much too slow as is evidenced by the blur in the legs - but I caught this horse at the top of his stride (that's what I mean by working on timing for a year).

This photo was also taken in an indoor arena - the horse is nearly the same color as the arena wall - how do you get the subject to "pop" when you have and issue like this?

And this what I prefer - natural light

Thanks for any and all hints - I know I will do a lot more reading than posting but I'm eager to learn as much as I can.