Creating a Successful Equine Portrait Session
Equine Photography feature
Delighted to contribute to The Guild of Photographer’s Creative Light Magazine this month, with an article exploring on how to create a successful Equine Portrait Session.
The article focuses on creating a great experience for your client, looking at location spotting and how reading horse behaviour can help create a fabulous session.
Creating a Successful Equine Portrait Session
Over the last few decades, I feel there has been a shift in horse owners to become more attuned with their relationship with their horses and proactively strive to see how best they can communicate with them. Now often seen as extended members of the family, (certainly in our household!) it’s fantastic to hear and read discussions on how they contribute hugely to supporting us, whether that’s giving us light relief at the end of a day from a stressful workplace, instilling confidence in a young person experiencing their first pony or providing unconditional love during times of sadness.
Setting the value of your client’s relationship with their horse
From an initial enquiry with any potential client, I like to get on the phone and chat with them about why they feel now is the right time to have a portrait session. (This has taken a few years of practice, as I was always so nervous talking on the phone!) But it’s invaluable. Whatever I learn from this conversation becomes the bedrock of their session and a focus on the result – what we’ll achieve at the end – beautiful, bespoke pieces of wall art that will have meaning and emotion, specific to my client.
So, we start with the goal and then create the steps to achieve it.
