The Horse Photography Market

A horse is an all-around animal, but can he model? Only one person can do it, and she is the lady equestrian photographer from Pasadena, California, whose works are displayed in many celebrity homes. Whereas her first camera came from Pasadena City College (PCC), she now takes her motor home office to various trackside events, including the Montreal Olympics where she snapped photos of British Princess Anne.

It was only practical that she should practice photography on horses for her PCC photography classes, which she took after graduating from Pasadena High School. Since she was 10 years old, she practically lived at the Eaton Canyon Riding Stables. She did her homework every weekend at the stables with her borrowed camera. She gave up music, art, and journalism once her first photo sold, putting her on the road to a career in horse photography.

At a Santa Barbara horse show, she found her first two mentors, a famous equestrian photographer pair, for whom she focused and posed horses at shows all over the country. Next, she was apprenticed under a different photographer pair, whose work focused on California events. Her mother takes care of business nowadays, while she shoots using her Swedish camera with German lens.

Excitement is best for these photos, and she captures the best six-foot jumps and races won by the nose. But she can also get them on all fours to pose for formal shots. Then there are horses who are naturals in front of the camera. She found horses that immediately perk their ears or raise their heads when they feel a camera being focused on them. You won't get any help at all from other horses.

There are a few rules of thumb when it comes to taking a good horse photo. One type of horses, the hunters and jumpers, are best shot mid-air with legs bent at the right angle. As for Tennessee walkers, famous photos are those with their front hoofs in action and an over reaching hoof with their hind legs. The best angle for a stock horse is stopping in a slide, and for the saddle horse with head and legs held high. An endangered South American species, for whom endless attempts are being made to multiply them, called the Peruvian Paso, is the subject of many of her most famous works. As their forelegs roll toward the outside, take their picture. It helps that their riders wear elaborate white ponchos with bridles and saddles.

With photography, she has been blessed with the chance to meet many celebrity horse enthusiasts. Even royalty is not beyond her reach. She was able to get close to the Queen, of all people, after photographing Princess Anne at the Montreal Olympics. When she asked the Queen if it made her nervous to watch her daughter taking the high jumps, Queen Elizabeth replied that yes she did. Though she also swims, back packs, bicycles, pans for gold and sometimes even rides a horse, she felt a need to intersperse her horse photography with photos of fork lifts.

With fork lifts, there is no need to look for perked ears.