"The Book What I Wrote..."

Hints & Tips For Photographing Horse Sports

No, it's not the memoirs of a life with Morecombe and Wise, or an autobiography, although this blog post is in danger of becoming one! This is a booklet with hints and tips for photographing horses in sport, something I've grown very fond of doing over the last few years along with hundreds of others, judging by the number of cameras you see out at horse shows these days. Before I ramble on, if you're just interested to know more about the book skip to the bottom of the page to find out.

A Good Photo Ruined

I'm still very much a self-confessed amateur when it comes to driving a camera, but I've learnt a lot over the last four years of photographing horses, and do occasionally manage to snap a photo that others wish to publish or find appealing. It's even led to commissions from the rich and famous. So I figure we all have to start somewhere, after all it's difficult enough trying to understand modern cameras beyond the auto settings, and so this booklet was born.

Over those four years I've had a lot of fun, but also made some monumental cock-ups, and come away from an event cursing myself for not getting a shot I thought I should've, or finding I've completely ruined a shot because of poor composition, like cutting feet off (see right), or a crap background.

I've been very lucky to get accreditation at some of the big 3-day-events and championships, and had the time off work to travel for my photography. As you'd expect it's pretty difficult getting any trade secrets out of professional photographers, but by watching and analysing others work I soon started to see an improvement in my own photographs.

The photo below is one of my all time favourites, and I was thrilled to have it described as "one of modern Equestrianism's most arresting beautiful photographs"

Greys In The Mist

I think @Monty_White's "Greys in the Mist" is one of modern Equestrianism's most arrestingly beautiful photographs ⁂ http://t.co/6stZWDr9Ci — Akaash Maharaj (@AkaashMaharaj) June 25, 2014

I guess one of the main reasons I started HorseHub was the fact that we all love to learn, especially when it comes to our passions and experiences. When we're passionate about something be it horses, music, technology, anything really, we go all out to find ways to increase our enjoyment of that passion.  The internet and the social media revolution are probably the biggest thirst quenchers there are, if you're on a quest to learn. So if photography and horses are your passion and you're just starting to get serious about it, I hope you find this booklet useful.

This booklet which is published in the interactive iBooks format, has over 100 photos with tips on composition and many of the simple technical techniques that should help you come away from a show with better photographs. It's available for download from iTunes for Mac OSX & iPad.

If you are interested in photography and do download it, please leave a review in iTunes. The great thing about this iBooks format is it's update-able so any feedback you have I can happily address in a future update.

 For more on my photography see: http://photography.talkinghorse.net