So you want to take good sale pictures

So we've all had our fair share of laughs at the terrible pictures people use to advertise their horses...  There are a lot of bad pictures that make people not even want to read the ad.

And a lot of ads have little to no text telling about the horse anyway, or it's filled with bad spelling. They don't really peak interest but they are also short and it doesn't scare people away from continuing. My for sale ads tend to be....  something that resembles a novella.

So what does it take to get people excited enough about your horse to keep reading for ten plus minutes?

Really awesome pictures.

But what does it take to get really awesome horse pictures? Well, unfortunately it's a little more difficult than just walking out to the pasture and snapping a picture with your camera phone.

It takes:
Preparation for you and the horse. If it's summer time that may involve bathing the horse. If you have a horse with lots of 'chrome' and white- this is pretty much what you'll have to do. But you can't just wash them with regular shampoo, oh no, you need whitening shampoo.

Since I do this often, I buy the concentrate since it lasts about 10 times as long. Costs about 20 bucks a bottle (ouch) but it WORKS and it will make your horse look amazing.  Until they, you know, roll in mud as soon as you let them free.

If you have a horse with dark points, especially if they tend to get sun bleached hair, you want darkening shampoo. (yes, it's a thing)

 But what if it's winter and cold outside?! Not all of us have access to an indoor washroom (I know I don't). So how do you get the stubborn grass stains out without a bath? The annoying way. Scrubbing. With bath in a bottle type stuff. ( I haven't had good luck with this particular brand however).

Once they're brights are bright and their dark's dark you can get to your new best friend. Show Sheen! Everybody loves show sheen. Another thing I buy in concentrate form. Or if you want to get creative, olive oil hair spray.

 What it should do is transform the horse. For example:

These are the same horses, on the same day. Which horse would you want to buy- assuming they're the same price and on the same site. If I could get the second version, why the heck would I want the first? 

So now that your equine beauty is all bathed and shiny you're ready to start getting YOU ready. Get a nice button up shirt or show shirt and jeans or riding pants, do your hair and makeup.Over exaggerate your makeup since it won't show up well on the pictures.  It matters- remember, you're selling everything in the picture. Horse, yourself and your property. Congratulations, you're now ready to start selling your body on the internet! Err, wait. That came out wrong.

Now you're ready to saddle up and start snapping away. Unless you're doing 'free' shots or confo shots. Then just turn them loose and let them run. the best day to take pictures is the introduction day- everyone's excited and showing off. But if that's not an option, then one thing you can do is try and separate them from the others- new location or you take the others away out of sight.  That gets them going pretty well.

So what you'll need:
A good camera- this is a bonus. I have a Nikon D5100 (I upgraded last year from the D40- which worked fine but had no video option). I paid about $250 for the D40 used (and sold it for the same) and about $500 + for the D5100. Now if you're only selling one horse, I wouldn't bother going out and getting a shiny new camera. But if you're going to sell multiple horses, I've found this to be pretty important. Also having a high zoom lens makes everything easier- aka, less running around like an idiot. You'll also want a good memory card, I'll get to why in a minute.

But for one horse you can use a digital camera, I would just strongly advise you to stay away from camera phones whenever possible. However, you can still take good pictures with a phone, the quality just won't be the same.

Here's an example of a picture I took with my crappy old flip phone. You can see the coloring is just kind of off.

Which brings me to my next helpful thing... photoshop. Yep. You heard me. It's a god send. You can fix discoloration and blurriness, crop the photo to the right size, get rid of ugly manure piles or debris in the back ground, etc.
Now I am NOT saying that you should photoshop the picture to change your horses flaws, etc. That would be bad.

Although I am guilty of photoshopping out stains and even occasionally photoshopping in forward facing ears.  Because getting a good confo shot and getting the horse to put their ears up can be the most frustrating thing ever. So I'll borrow the up ears from another picture and fix the confo shot.  It's easier than finding two people to help me take the pictures. Otherwise I need someone to pose/hold the horse and another to get them to perk their ears up.

Did I mention this is a two person job? Because it totally is. Unless you can manage to take the pictures of you riding, while you're riding...  Now if you figure out how to do that.... let me know. Because you'll be my new best friend.

Anyway, now we're to the 'fun part'. Getting good posed shots.
 Which requires some props... And plenty of self degradation and ridiculousness.
So, props I use to get perked ears include: Anything and everything that makes noise, or is shiny and unusual.

Shiny

Horses are often scared of umbrellas- spinning and opening them works well but may scare them and you don't want a frightened horse, just an alert one. 

Best. Prop. Ever.

If you can't find these, use some pennies in an old pill bottle. 

Things to throw will often make them look the direction you want.

So you know how I said you'd want a good memory card? Well, if you want to take the kind of pictures that I do, you'll want a good one. I use a 16 or 32 GB card. Why?
Same reason I asked you guys to guess how many pictures we take per shoot. (Which you didn't, tisk tisk.)

Well, we take about 1000 pictures per shoot. Seriously, but that's for two horses. Riding pictures always need more than free shots.
The saying goes, you need about 100 pictures before you get one 'good' one. So we usually take about 600 per horse to get a handful of 'ad quality' shots.

Now you'll have a crap ton of ones to erase, even if it's free running shots- because of one reason or another.
Bad lighting, ears back, legs are at a wrong angle, blurry picture, derpy facial expression, crappy background, and so on.

So then you mark the best shots and edit them. Crop and correct the color and all that fun stuff and then you're ready to go!

Yeah, it's kind of a lot of work and a pain in the ass.

I've considered offering my services though since good pictures really will sell your horse for you. You can get more money and have a wider selection of people to choose from as well. More interest means you can be even pickier about who you sell to.
Which is a really good thing.


For tips on what to look for in a 'good shot' i'm linking to a site that has some good tips: http://www.nickertown.com/page/Equine-Photography-Tips


Have fun!