Photography for Photo Showing : Tips and Tricks!

It's been a little while (more than a little, tbh) since I last made a post for this series, so here we go today! This post will be all about how to best position your model when photographing for a show.

This series is what works for me, and what my opinions are as a judge. If you disagree and have a better method, good for you! Please do share. This series is mainly to help beginners, but everyone can take a look and see what they can improve!

The method that has the best outcome (at least for me), is quite simple to understand, yet a little difficult to achieve. Not many of my show photos are even 'perfect' examples for this. But, I have a few. Some people find it easier to do than others, and I'm of the latter group. As long as you can get close, good enough in my book! Especially if you are a beginner. Now, lets get started! :)

I wont be sharing anyone else's photos, as I don't feel comfortable with picking apart someone's work. All of the photos used in this series, are mine!

For most models, I find that keeping their hooves 'level' is key. No, I don't mean rotating the image itself to make it level. A model can be angled too much one way or the other, which can significantly impact how it looks in a photo. This is best shown visually:

What TO do:

Ignore the poor lighting, and the background. One of my foals, Aziz, has his line is very straight, thus, making him proportional, and not distorted.

What NOT to do:

See how the line is slanted? Not ideal. It can make the model look disproportional. I could have rotated Ms Gamma Knife's front end away from me a little, to get the perfect angle. There are more extreme angles that I have seen in shows while judging, but don't have a photograph of mine handy to use as an example of the extreme cases.

Let's look at the lines themselves, without the models.

When it's such minor difference, it doesn't automatically make me place the model on the bottom of the pile while judging. But, when it is more noticeable, they are generally ranked lower (though, other factors come into play, of course).

Ok, here's the fun part. Some models refuse to conform to this rule. They might have more of an action pose (such as turning or having legs going everywhere), which impacts how you go about things. For those guys, You want their side exactly parallel to the camera, no matter how the head is positioned. I see so many people line the head up, instead of the body, which makes it difficult as a judge to look at the conformation of the model.

Hopefully there wont be as long of a pause between this series' future posts as it has been. I've been quite busy judging for various shows!

Well, that about wraps this post up! Thanks for reading. :)