Announcing my Horse photography workshop!

It’s one day of on location shooting in a perfectly western setting, then another day of critique and equine specific photo editing!

Everyone knows how to be an encouraging and uplifting photographer to bolster the confidence of their model, but what if your model is a horse? Horses can often be afraid of the photographer and all the equipment brought with them which can result in an unenthusiastic horse and lackluster photos.

Through a number of various orchestrated photo opportunities I will show you how to put the horse and rider at ease to create the best horse photos in the west. We will create a studio in an arena with lighting to create a beautiful “on black” portrait look, action shots with a galloping rider, epic stills of a horse in the field and more.

This is a photography workshop that will teach you how to capture the wide range of personality and excitement that comes with western horse photography. Taking place in an idyllic western setting. The O'Reilly ranch and arena has big Alberta skies, roaming horses and everything you would expect in this true life working ranch.

More info here: http://www.thecamerastore.com/10619-Western-Equine-Photography-Workshop-with-Kyle-Marquardt.aspx

Rachel and Cassiar

Calgary, Alberta, Canada

We had a fantastic photo shoot this morning with Rachel of R.G Equine Therapy. Incredible morning light and sky east of Calgary. Cassiar the horse was so eager to please it made everything such a breeze! ...And I'm a poet and didn't know it!

As a side note, I've noticed sometimes on facebook there is a bit more interesting discussion. People seem to be  a bit more inquisitive there, so I thought I'd forward you a link where we talk about the lighting in this photo here: http://klou.tt/1m2ycetyybi81

#equinephotography   #horses   #photography   #strobist  

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Golden Horse Sunset

Muskwa-Kechika, B.C., Canada

I'm so excited to finally be posting the photos I got from my trip, it's only been two days but I have a whole load of awesome stuff to share!

Evening golden light was hitting our camp and the one horse that always loved being exactly 100 meters away from the herd was standing in the perfect spot. His name is Percy and thank goodness he was actually standing up, as he treats the ground like his personal sofa most of the time. Come to think of it, he's a pretty odd horse. Percy likes sticking his face in the smoke of the campfire, loves riding up front but walks slower than everyone else, and he's the only white horse in the herd acting like a visual beacon from far away. No doubt, he brings a certain useful quality to the expedition.

Photographic Details
Percy was stuffing his face with the Muskwa-Kechika grass, which wasn't very pretty. The light was hitting him perfectly and I positioned myself so Percy would fit in the right hand side of the image showing the beautiful highlighted peaks of the Rocky Mountains in the background. But I still had to get his attention, and the usual horse noises and weird sounds I made had lost their effect. At last, I threw my leatherman and everything I bought at +MEC that could fit in my pocket into the ground in front of me with a satisfying jingle, this was unusual enough to get Percy to look up and put his fuzzy ears forward for just a second, enough time for me to hit the shutter.

I think +Wayne Sawchuk might have already been in bed, but I was pretty darn happy to be out here in this golden light!

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, 70-200 f2.8. f7.1 1/80th
#horses  

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Riding the trail line

Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Every day out in the wilderness here I’m riding behind my fellow #horseback  riders I was thinking that not everyone in the world has experienced this, that something I’m so used to can be so new to someone else. So I’m going to spill the details on such a simple aspect of expedition life with the #horses  . Believe it or not, I’m back of the pack simply because of horse politics. My horse, Peach is somewhat pokey, and doesn’t really feel confidant at the front of the pack, where as the rest of these horses have a strong desire to be a the back of the pack. While a rider can boss their horse around and tell them exactly where to be, these horses are vehemently social animals themselves, and letting them ride next to their best buddies in places they feel comfortable can make the adventure much more pleasant for everyone involved.

Photographic details:
I wanted this photo to have a strong sense of motion. To achieve this I used an extremely slow #shutterspeed   of 1/60th of a second. But the motion on the horse wasn’t enough, we weren’t galloping at full speed so while taking the photo I zoomed in simply by holding my lens and spinning the camera. This created the interesting twisted blur around the edges, but kept the center rider mostly free of blur. Because of the symmetry I kept the rider in the middle of the frame. Canon 5D Mark II ISO 100, f9, 160/sec

#horselovers   #travelphotography  

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