Photographing Foals - Front Shots

By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jaime_Foutty]Jaime Foutty
Moving on to other Foal Shots
So you read Part 1, and you have a nice digital SLR camera with a few lenses. You want to get the front views to show off. How do you do that? Learning to recognize the correct pose of the foal is again essential. Since most babies don't know showmanship, patience is again a key element, as you must wait for the foal to get into position, by accident. The other elements from Part 1, such as lighting and camera position, will remain the same.
So what about the camera requirement? What's that all about? In order to keep everything in proper proportions, you need to shoot at about 70mm or greater. Most point and shoot cameras are equipped with wide angle lenses and rarely reach this range. This means you will need a telephoto lens. I have a 70-300mm zoom lens that works well for baby shots as it lets me stay a bit further away if I need to.
When working with this type of equipment, you open yourself up to many more options and poses for your pictures. For this article, I am going to focus on the front 3/4 shot that's popular amongst stock breeds for showing off face markings, muscling, and straight legs. When viewed straight on, a horse posed correctly for a front 3/4 shot will almost appear to have the same distance left to right between all four legs, (this is, of course, a simple illusion of two dimensional pictures). In a perfect set up, both gaskins and both forearms will be completely visible without any overlapping. The horse's neck will come straight out of his body and he will NOT be looking at the camera, he'll be looking straight. The camera will be right in front of the shoulder, and the horse will be at an angle to the camera.
Three Quarter Shot?
So what angle do you need? The misnomer 3/4 shot implies a 45 degree angle but that isn't quite right. The actual angle will depend slightly on the size of the horse and how he's set up, so try to stick with the tips I outlined above (equi-distant legs, gaskins visible, etc) instead of focusing on an exact angle.
They are Babies!!
So after you've read all this good advice about perfect and proper posing for 3/4 shots, go out to the field and then be easy on yourself! They are babies. They won't set up perfect every time. Just go with it. At liberty foal pictures are about the "total good" of the shot and are rarely expected to be perfectly posed.
Jaime Foutty of [http://www.equinefotography.com]Equine Fotography has over ten years experience in the equine field with a special fondness for foal photography. To learn more tricks and tips for free, read her blog [http://www.flatknees.com]FlatKnees&Fotography.
Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Photographing-Foals---Front-Shots&id=6577353] Photographing Foals - Front Shots