As you may have noticed from my photos, I love photographing landscapes, nature from all angles and animals. And more specifically animal portraits.
Animals can't talk, so I like to try and imagine what they might be thinking or telling us through the moments I capture.
Among the most interesting animals and those closest to man, we have horses. So big, so noble and so majestic, partners in man's life for... so long.
Today, in this article, I'd like to share with you my approach to photographing portraits of horses.
Expressions, attitudes and movements
One of the messages that we photographers like to convey is the emotion. Personally, I like to create emotion through my animal portraits. And on this point, I don't think there are any good or bad attitudes to photograph, but there are attitudes and/or movements that correspond more or less well to the emotion we're trying to promote through our photos. The challenge for the photographer is to imagine what the animal is thinking at the time, through the expression and emotion conveyed by the image..
In this case, the relationship with the horse is very important. As photographers, it's mainly thanks to their rider/human partner that we're able to capture interesting attitudes and expressions. In my opinion, this is an excellent opportunity to capture expressive exchanges. It's the complicity between the subjects that does all the work. I think that's the basis for horse portraits, and then of course you can play around with the technique.
Wide and tight shots
Widely used in photography and video, the different planes are a simple and effective way of increasing the interaction between the viewer and the photo. As you can imagine, wide shots provide a global view of the situation. This allows you to create a context for the emotion, enabling a story to be told or an interaction to be enhanced.
In contrast, although in the same vein, close-ups allow for greater intimacy between the viewer and the photograph, a shorter distance, a closer approach. This is the moment of details, which alone are of little interest, but these images of details added to the wider shots offer an even more complete story.
To produce these plans, I'll show you which lenses I use in particular:
The lenses I like to use for portraits of horses
In the photos in this article, I've mainly used 3 main lenses;
The most versatile is the 24-105mm f/4 sigma mounted on my Canon 5D mark IV camera..
Very practical, but standard. You can technically do anything with this lens. It allows you to create what I would call the most neutral images. Which is to say the least creative, technically speaking. Nonetheless, it's with this lens that you can get some nice wide shots, which are very useful as explained above.
A contrario, I also like to use my canon 50mm, f/1.4 This time for tight shots. It's with this lens that I like to be close to the subject, as it distorts perspectives very little, and allows superb background blur.
All that's left is the Sigma 70-120mm f/2.8 which I use for long-distance shots. Although it's quite far away from the subject, it allows me to take both wide shots and details. Or even moving, action shots that sometimes require a certain distance. What's more, the f/2.8 aperture means you can also get nice blurred shots that really separate your subject from the background.
Now that the photos have been taken, and we have several types of images and shots, all that remains is to reveal them, and that's where post-production comes in.
Development and post-production
It's the last, absolutely essential step for me. Photo development and post-production are there to help your style shine through in your images. The first step in a photographer's style is framing, shots and angles, but there's no doubt that developing and retouching are equally important. The expression of colour, contrast, saturation, vintage effects, black and white etc... reinforce the basic creative idea.
But be careful, the development must be in harmony with the creative idea. When I say that, it's in the spirit of having an overall theme in mind. Either in a series of photos, or a theme harmonising the photo.
In other words, an illustration photo will not be developed in the same way as a photo with a cinematic or historical theme. A textured black and white photo will express something more historical or old-fashioned than a contrasting, highly coloured photo, which will be more "modern". . It's like in cooking, the seasoning helps to harmonise all the ingredients in the recipe, I like to think 😉 :
Development is the seasoning of a photo
Developing and retouching make it possible to link everything together: the photographer with the subject or subjects, the context, the message and the emotion with the final viewer of the photo.
That's it, I think I've covered my approach to animal portraiture and, more specifically, to portraits of horses. Read more about my capture techniques, come this way,
Take a look at my gallery of wildlife photos, if you want to decorate your home.
How would you photograph your horse? How would you photograph your horse? What angles and style do you prefer when developing?
A happy end of year (photo 😉 ) to you all,
David
PS: The photos above were taken during a shooting at the Thalie stables. (Saint-Martin-du-Vieux-Bellême, Normandy, France)
