Any advise shooting kids & horses?

[paul48503]

Be careful shooting a Horse with children. Never know how they will react to the flash or unfamiliar objects. I have a Horse and it got spooked not by the flash but by the cowboy hat that the child was wearing. He took it off and touched the horse with it. This happened not long after the flash went off. This spooked the horse. I could have gotten good rodeo pictures... My horse dosn't get spooked very easily but a flash is different to them. Just be careful!

[zerovision]

With the shoot being delayed, it may be beneficial to you. I don't know where this facility is, but the one we went to, years ago, was in the Wylie area. This place was very big. The barn held, maybe, 30 horses. The owner may not be the best person to contact to get a test shoot. See if your contact has someone else that can help set up a test shoot that may possibly be able to meet you out there on a specific day.

All or most of the horses used should be retired from which ever sport they were involved with when they were in their prime. These are the types of horses that are used because they are very trustworthy.

If you need flash, do you have off camera TTL? If so, one of the walkers or an assistant may be able to hold the flash off to one side or a walker on each side pointed at the child. This may reduce the amount of flash in the horses eyes.

If your contact does not have anyone else that can assist with the test shoot, ask her if she knows anyone you can call to ask questions about the horses. If there is someone that works around that horses, but may not be the trainer, they may be able to tell you if the horses are easily spooked.

Even just talking to someone over the phone may help ease any concern about the horses spooking. The class should be in a controlled environment such as an arena. They will probably be riding in circles and you should be able to move between them semi-freely to take pictures.

I'm not sure why the shoot would be delayed, because most of these riding facilities have the riding classes once a week.

Hope some of this helps out. Looking forward to see the pictures and finding out how the shoot went.

[dlanter]

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for the info. I'm not sure why my shoot got delayed either. When I was first asked to do this, she said that she wanted the photos for their website and also for promotional material for a big fund raiser they were having in June. I'm not sure, but I got the impression that they were in process of moving from another location, maybe they just haven't got back into operation yet.

The ranch that the classes are held is just north of Frisco and I drove by there a few times hoping to find someone in the corral area. They have a pretty big circular arena outside what looks like the main stables. Every time I went by, the horses were in a field away from the road, so I wasn't able to get close to them.