[QUOTE=retreadeventer;7499662]
Study good slow motion video of a horse jumping in competition. Frame by frame. [/QUOTE]
Oooo, good idea!! I do this with my schooling videos so I can see how my position changes moment to moment at each part of the stride or jump. Never thought of it as a photography tool, great suggestion!
You’ve gotten a lot of advice but I also wanted to say that I thought you had some beautiful framing and a lot of your photos were gorgeous. But as others said, riders only want to buy those photos that are flattering. 
I really like OP’s pictures especially from a photojournalism point of view. There’s a lot of action, beautiful glass, some really great shots.
If you are selling, something to realize is that riders are on a budget, and if they get to a lot of shows they probably already have quite a few pictures. The more they buy, the less they need, so they get pickier and pickier. 
So, as this happens, here are the reasons those riders will buy:
Note that you as a photographer have very little control over anything but (3), which costs you money! Weddings and landscapes start to look much more alluring.
I have bought a galloping picture, because it was really cool, and at beginner novice, it’s not like any of the ones over the jump were all that interesting.
When I photograph horses, I do tend to err on the side of getting too much surroundings and cropping later. Horses are unpredictable and often end up in different places in the frame than you planned.
Equine competition photography is really difficult, because the photographer can only control his choice of equipment and make strategic decisions given the available lighting. He does not control the horse nailing his ears back or the rider sticking an elbow out…
…OK guys. I’m back from Rocking Horse Spring and uploaded - hopefully my new and improved pictures. I tried to remember all of your advice The sad part is the weather turned horrible on Day 1 and cancelled stadium and xc for the rest of the day. So, I’m bummed, as I could only make it down today to take pictures. Love to continue to get feedback on this edition of pictures - as that is why I started this thread.
***Please note - I was NOT the OP for this event. These pictures are only for view (and critique only). Obviously, somebody reading this thread did NOT get the memo that I was attending the show to only take practice pictures. Enough said on that issue… geez.
Look forward to hearing the good, bad and even ugly (if there is any).
http://www.randytraynorphotography.com/p877984432/e2e4a4118
Randy
Personally the only ones I liked of this new set were # 12 and 16. I don’t care for the horse hanging draped over a vertical, esp when the front legs are starting to unfold for landing. You lose the action when they drape, it looks stagnant. I like the ascending with the front legs snapped up and square. If a fence is a wide oxer or table then it’s okay with the horse in the middle to show the scope of the horse and the size of the fence.
The timing on a stadium picture is more touchy than x-c. There’s not really going to be more than one flattering moment. 12 is the best, 10 is OK, 16 is OK. Photos 1 and 2 I wouldn’t even have snapped - the horse’s expression is grumpy or tired.
yes… stadium was harder than I thought. Kind of boring to me 
Although, all the riders I talked to said they put up with dressage and stadium to get to what they really enjoy, XC. I wish it hadn’t flooded today - I wanted to get new XC shots. Guess I’ll have to wait till Ocala in two weeks.
OP, you have some beautiful shots in terms of focus, detail, color, frame and so forth. I rather hope this does work out for you in the long run … but as you are finding out, you have much to learn to make it a success.
The good news: If you are serious about pro photography of horse competition, there are more opportunities these days, as many of the old reliables are getting out due to the economics.
So that’s the other news: Study the economics of this and see if you can make it work to your satisfaction before making too much of an initial investment.
Your biggest competition may be the amateurs who take photos of family and friends and give them away for free. But those photos aren’t always the quality that the rider wants, so many riders do buy the pro photos.
There are a lot of photogs who like the idea of shooting eventing professionally - but not many are really, really good at it. Most can’t produce photos as beautiful as yours. Oh - and you must be able to get a finished quality photo in all weather conditions!
No matter how lovely your photos are, frequent competitors have the opportunity to buy literally hundreds of photos throughout one or several seasons. What are they going to do with them all? So you need that must-have shot - and as you already know, the customer decides what that is.
The most important thing:
Beyond the legal aspects of who has the right to shoot and sell at events … eventing is a small world and you can’t afford to piss off the people who control pro photog access: The Organizers. And that means not pissing off the OP they have hired, because that can produce heavy consequences for the organizer.
Organizers like to have one pro photog they can rely on. Pros like to have organizers who protect their right to sell. This is a tightly-wound business relationship - you need to learn the dynamics, and build good will with organizers, long before you ever work for them.
Legally, you have the right to shoot and sell anything you can see. It doesn’t matter what agreement the organizer and pro photog have - they can’t stop you - ***except by having the organizer throw you off the grounds - and organizers WILL DO IT ***. Eventing is almost always on private property, and the owner can chuck out anybody.
If that happens, the locals will talk about it FOREVER - the story will never, ever die. Eventing - especially local eventing - is a small world. You don’t want to live with that embedded in the undying gossip chain! You will be burning future business with this and other organizers, and possible other future business as well.
Pro photogs do sign “exclusive” contracts with organizers. Not only for photos, but business cards and any solicitation. But what that really does is put the organizer in the role of enforcer. Some contracts specify that the organizer will escort off the grounds any competitive pro that is selling, or appears to be. This includes in-barn photos. It includes handing out information advertising your services (such as farm shoots). They’ve granted all those rights to the OP because it is so tough for OP’s these days. And it’s the organizer’s property, so they don’t have to have a reason to bar someone.
Why do organizers do this for their pro’s? Because there are a lot of photographers but not many good ones. Organizers need a good OP as part of the package that attracts the most serious competitors, including trainers who bring a lot of students wherever they go.
So I share this to hopefully save you some embarrassment. I do hope your beautiful images can become part of eventing, as you learn and grow.
I’ve watched them, and no one works harder at an event than the OP and their staff - especially the OP themselves. A 12-hour day is a short one during the event - a “half-day”! And this is a very outdoor sport where you can hear the words “put on a raincoat and ride”.
[QUOTE=ccoronios;7498472]… We KNOW that family takes photos of their family members, and we know they also take photos of friends - and we grit our teeth and cowboy up. But we do get a bit testy, although most of us try to be polite, when we see someone taking pictures of ALL competitors, handing out business cards, etc. To say that you’re only putting them up on FB or that you’re not selling them - only giving them away - so it doesn’t affect our sales isn’t logical. And if you’re selling them at Dollar Store prices, you are not only affecting the OP’s sales, but you are also devaluing and disrespecting your own work.
… Certainly your first step would be to contact show management, to ask not only if there IS an official photographer, but who that person is and if you could have their contact info. Because, as is often the case, one hand of show management often doesn’t know what the other hand knows. So you should also contact the OP to ask what their contract covers.
… :([/QUOTE]
Yes. And it’s not just contracts and legalities. The relationship between the organizer and OP is not something to mess with! Especially if you would like it to be you one day …
Remember - all the organizers in any Area talk to each other. Many also talk to organizers outside the Area as well. The USEA official Areas have official Organizer meetings. Especially where the photographer situation is in flux (old ones resigning, new ones coming in), they do talk and gossip among themselves, including about photogs.
Organizers should know the promo sign needs to be on the BACK side of a cross-country jump for just this reason. The spectators may see the front, but they don’t remember it for long. The photo is what lives and circulates FB and elsewhere, many more eyes see it, for longer.
There are organizers who have all promo signs on the back of XC jumps.
[QUOTE=rtphotography;7503084]
all the riders I talked to said they put up with dressage and stadium to get to what they really enjoy, XC. [/QUOTE]
Now you have found why we all pay ridiculous amounts of money for this insanely challenging sport! There’s only one way to get to run a professionally-designed, marked, and timed XC course!!
I envy your glass, it looks expensive, sigh!
Stadium is harder and it’s really only excited if you know the rider OR it’s the last phase that decides placing at a big event. The courses happen so quickly, but you do get lots of chances to practice and can easily switch angles for better light or variety. But looks like you figured out jump framing!
In this set, if it was my horse, I like #22 (great impulsion, I’d like 23 if the horse was a bit more forward and not behind the bit), 16-20, 12 (best stadium shot of the lot, just the right moment for the horse, even though rider is jumping ahead a smidge), 4, 6, 8, and 10. I don’t mind a hanging shot if it shows some air time, but yes, it would be improved if the front legs were still snapped up.
This is what I meant about asking horse people what they like, haha!
For pretty much all the other ones, I did not like them because the horse’s facial expression was either pissy or bored (we like alert, pricked ears/focus) or it was an awkward landing moment where the front legs were already on the ground.
^^^^^^I could agree with you more on ALL of the above points OverandOwnward. Thanks for all of your advice - along with everyone else that has posted here.
I know I am far from being the OP at an event. Sure, do I take great pics (sharp, detailed, etc…) yes, that’s from my many years of landscape shooting and I have won many awards and graced magazine covers with my work. However, I am humble enough to know that I am a rookie at Equine and that’s why I am reaching out to riders and even other photographers. I totally respect any current OP and I am NOT out to take business away… only to learn this craft of capturing great moments in equine. My original approach to this sport, when taking pictures at Red Hills, was to capture an equine moment as a specialized “animal” photo. No different than when I get up way before dawn to capture birds or wild game. Animals are beautiful creatures - the horse is no exception. I didn’t go to Red Hills to steal business away, only to capture the beauty of the scene, the rider, the horse and produce a great shot that my followers of my work would be amazed at. Who knows, maybe next year, some of my followers who did not make it to Red Hills will go themselves BECAUSE of the shots I took. Maybe they will want to see the beauty of the event in person. That’s my main approach to taking pictures at events. It’s NOT to sell them to a rider, or pass out business cards while at the event – but to just capture a beautiful moment in time. Hell, I drove three hours yesterday just to take pictures and then the rain came and I missed out on XC so I drove three hours back home. But, I did get some good practice in. I also did it, because I love to try and capture a special moment in time. Photography does that.
I guess that has been my argument all along in this post. I want to come to events to capture that great picture for me – not for each and every rider. I want to post them on my web site so that others will see MY work and appreciate it. If, in the event someone sees a picture of say, Ellie Macphail that I took of her, and they know her and contact Ellie and say – OMG… did you see this picture of you on RT Photo’s site? Then Ellie goes and sees her picture – likes it and contacts me to buy it. I am humbled at that point that someone appreciates my work and wants to reward me buy purchasing it. It’s no different than me selling my landscapes.
At this point, I 'm not sure if I even want to try and be an OP now – with (like you said and I’ve seen) the long hours and taking pictures in all weather conditions, etc. I respect all OP’s for this. I am learning more about this sport and all the time, effort it takes to give riders good shots. It’s a lot of work. Can I still produce a great quality shot if I am trying to take all the riders, process the pictures and try and sell them in the same day? I take many, many shots of the same landscape – from different views and lighting –then review each one before making my final selection to print. That takes days sometimes – something I don’t have being at an equine event.
I almost want to just focus on just being a horse photographer for the equine side of my work. I drove around Ocala yesterday before I headed home and saw all the farms and horses running wild or grazing and it just made me think “that would be a great landscape capture.” Instead of capturing a great moment between a rider and horse at an event – the private time portrait shots is more along the line of my kind of photography. Early morning mist on a rolling farm hill as the horses are galloping through the pasture with a large tree silhouetted in the shot.…. now that’s an awesome moment to capture and remember forever. * *Speaking of that, if anyone out there has a farm with that type of scene – let me know – I’d love to come capture that moment for you, me and others
Anyway, this is a long post but I think I needed to make things a bit clearer for some of those reading along that I am not a threat – I guess you could say I am an equine student myself - only in photography. Maybe one day I will be your OP at an event. If I am, I promise I’ll be ready to give you good quality shots. After all, my name is on that picture.
I absolutely love what you are thinking about this. I would love to see those photos.
Competition photos of that nature may fall into the classification of “candids”, even if they don’t always have people in them. They can be great for magazines (online & offline) and publicity. Organizers often will only use an OP’s image on their program and in their publicity, but you might interest them for their website. Just depends on what the OP thinks about it.
As far as market, it sounds like websites & flyers, and property owners who want a truly fine framed photo of their place. You have more ideas of market, with your experience.
Of course when people start telling you “that’s nice but it’s not what people buy”, “riders don’t want that, they want X & Y”, “there’s not a market” – what that really means is that you are creating a new market, and you’re the only one in it! lol Probably there is something of a market for this already and you can find someone who knows it.
Re the OP/weather situation …
As a rider, if it is pouring rain or dry & 90+ degrees, if everyone is on time (ha!) I can ride at my assigned time and be out there in the weather maybe 45 minutes. Double that time, and it still is nowhere near what the pro photogs are doing.
I have watched OP’s sitting under a sun hat, in one place, morning to last rider of the day, in 90+ heat all. day. long. For the BN/N divisions, not the exciting UL’s. And, standing in the rain wearing what appears to be a tent, cameras in plastic bags, all day long. (People do enjoy a really good pic of their round in the driving rain!)
And, they are saying it doesn’t pay that well. It must be love & passion on the part of the photogs, there is no other explanation!
I haven’t read through all of the responses but a couple of recommendations in general from me in regards to stadium:
Oxers are much easier for timing and more impressive for shooting. I can only think of one vertical photo I have ever bought and it was in a Grand Prix so the jump was big enough to be impressive/good arc from the horse.
Front shots generally aren’t great, nor are shots jumping away. Side square or side angled photos are usually best too.
I really like some of your candids too.
[QUOTE=OverandOnward;7503700]
I have watched OP’s sitting under a sun hat, in one place, morning to last rider of the day, in 90+ heat all. day. long. For the BN/N divisions, not the exciting UL’s. And, standing in the rain wearing what appears to be a tent, cameras in plastic bags, all day long. (People do enjoy a really good pic of their round in the driving rain!)
And, they are saying it doesn’t pay that well. It must be love & passion on the part of the photogs, there is no other explanation! :)[/QUOTE]
Partly that, OnO - but the primary reason is that we have a contract. Our contract included an ‘inclement weather’ clause, due to the reality that cameras and lenses are not overly fond of getting wet, and it is a rare show in which sales will pay enough to cover replacement costs nearing five figures. But we are still on site, and if at all possible, will be out shooting - because we have a contract to be.
EDITED: just to say that when I responded, I hadn’t read #48 or all of your next one. I should know better!
OverandOnward-
I cannot thank you enough (boldly, on behalf of ALL event photogs everywhere) for your thoughtful, well-put, detailed post #48. Have no idea where you’re located, but if close enough - or if we ever run into each other, I will be honored to buy you a drink.
And y’know, there have been a number of very contentious threads on COTH regarding OPs - this one has remained civil and thoughtful. Perhaps because it’s in the eventing area, rather than h/j or dressage. For that, thank you ALL!
Carol
The equine photography market DOES have a niche for farm/stallion/breeding stock photography, which looks like it pays much better, you schedule with an individual client, etc, as I’m sure you know. In FL, I’m sure there are HEAPS of breeding facilities for TB’s, jumpers, etc and they always need striking, dramatic photos of their stock, both adults and foals for promotional materials and (if they are rich horse people, LOL) just because they can!!
In addition, there has been a growing trend for “post wedding” photos of bride and horse where she doesn’t care what happens to the poofy dress anymore so they can stand in the ocean or lay in the pasture, as well as senior photographs for school. Additional on-farm portrait and action photography for promotion of horses/riders for in-sport marketing at the high end, particularly hunters, dressage, AQHA in-hand horses is another niche.
[QUOTE=ccoronios;7504995]
OverandOnward-
I cannot thank you enough (boldly, on behalf of ALL event photogs everywhere) for your thoughtful, well-put, detailed post #48. Have no idea where you’re located, but if close enough - or if we ever run into each other, I will be honored to buy you a drink.
And y’know, there have been a number of very contentious threads on COTH regarding OPs - this one has remained civil and thoughtful. Perhaps because it’s in the eventing area, rather than h/j or dressage. For that, thank you ALL!
Carol[/QUOTE]
You are very kind - thank you! You could mail that drink to West of the Mississippi … or better yet, show me how to use those pro-quality fancy cameras, instead. I would carry your folding chair around events for you if you could manage to do that! :lol:
[QUOTE=OverandOnward;7506510]
You are very kind - thank you! You could mail that drink to West of the Mississippi … or better yet, show me how to use those pro-quality fancy cameras, instead. I would carry your folding chair around events for you if you could manage to do that! :lol:[/QUOTE]
Well, I know I can sort of e-mail Starbucks, but not sure about anything ‘real’! And I’d love to help you with your camera - but that’s pretty tricky long-distance, too. What do you have?
[QUOTE=ccoronios;7507585]
Well, I know I can sort of e-mail Starbucks, but not sure about anything ‘real’! And I’d love to help you with your camera - but that’s pretty tricky long-distance, too. What do you have?[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the offer! I’m not telling what I have. It was on sale - very, very steeply discounted. :yes: But I’ve gotten some nice shots people asked if they could buy. I gave them away, of course, because of the organizer-pro exclusive-right-to-sell agreement.
It’s not a pro camera. Tried using a borrowed pro camera and even with brief “dial this and move this” instruction was lost. Some life circumstances have to change so I can justify buying a real pro camera - and it would be good if I knew how to use it! :lol: But, anyway, I do relate to rtphotography’s perspective. The weather I don’t mind. But I’m not so interested in being anchored to one jump per division for an entire event, as the pros are.
Sometimes the OPs need additional shooters at the bigger shows. A great way to gain experience and learn the trade while building relationships within the industry and not stepping on toes would be to contact some of the horse show photographers in your area and see if anyone needs help. Some photogs will ask you to shadow them until you can get your timing down and show that you can get a few sellable, well timed shots of each rider (even those that are just in the ring for one round) and some will pay you for your time, but it’s a great way to experience what the day is like for the OP, and will give you a great opportunity to learn from those currently succeeding in the business. You could try hunter/jumper shows as well as eventing as those often have multiple rings running at the same time and so OPs need several shooters.
[QUOTE=ccoronios;7498685]
Willesdon - I’d LOVE to be able to do that - even for the riders. Unfortunately, most of the sponsor signs are on the approach, and most competitors want photos from 45 degree (+/-) front angle. WISH events/shows would put the sponsorship on the ‘going away’ side!
Of course, if I were shooting FOR the sponsor, I’d get the sign - but then there would be sad faces that the angle for the competitor wasn’t ‘pleasing’. :-([/QUOTE]
The only way I’ve ever found to have the decorations and banners on the “photo” side of the jump was to volunteer to help decorate the jumps myself! Those events were the only times that the pretty red flowers and the Banner With The Important Name were right where I wanted them! 
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