Horse Lover here - new and first attempt to post some pics!!!

heatherkphotography

Hi guys,

I would love some opinions on these! New here and trying to get my name out there. Thanks so much, Heather Also, is there a section for Equine photography on here? I saw one of Nature and Wildlife, but my horse isn't exactly wild - well at least not anymore :thumb



This is Beau - I have had him for the past 2 years and he is just the best horse. I think it really made a huge difference that I broke him myself and now he listens really wonderfully :barb



He can be really goofy too! :rofl

OK just those to start and more to come :wink

Skippy

heatherkphotography wrote:

Hi guys,

I would love some opinions on these! New here and trying to get my name out there. Thanks so much, Heather Also, is there a section for Equine photography on here? I saw one of Nature and Wildlife, but my horse isn't exactly wild - well at least not anymore

This is Beau - I have had him for the past 2 years and he is just the best horse. I think it really made a huge difference that I broke him myself and now he listens really wonderfully
He can be really goofy too!

OK just those to start and more to come

Hi there Heather, and welcome to Dgrin
Looks like your friend Beau has something to say in the second shot
He's a fine looking 4 legged friend.

Enjoy the Forums, happy Posting
... Skippy
.

heatherkphotography

Just me again with some other pics - My friend Sherry posing with Beau
Posting pics is fun! Here are some more... My friend Sherry and I came up with the idea of her dressing up as a faiery and posing with Beau. I wanted him in the woods and completely free of tack for a natural look. I think they came out great, turns out he's a good model!



The light wasn't quite right on this one, so I made it sepia. And like it this way. What do you guys think???



This one is kind of humorous with her eyes peeking over his head like that.



The red wig is HORRIBLE, but I still like this picture. It was our first try at this, you live and you learn!!! Haha!



This was from our first shoot when she was 'bad faiery' (we did two altogether). He would not cooperate with us out on the open grassy area so we put him in the round pen and he calmed down. Don't know why he was so nervous at first. Silly boy.



Another 'bad faiery' shot.

OK that's it for now. Would LOVE to get some feedback on these. THANKS!!!

sirsloop

Welcome! Funny shots! I really like #2 where he's throwing up his head. The back lighting works great on it! I shoot a lot of equine events and do some private sittings. Both my fiancee and I are horse people...she broke her horse as well and has had him for like 13 years now. It always cracks me up when people get dressed up and stuff. I'm not judgemental... just always makes me chuckle . Happy riding and do more portraits! They are fun!

heatherkphotography

Thanks for the feedback...

sirsloop wrote:

Welcome! Funny shots! I really like #2 where he's throwing up his head. The back lighting works great on it! I shoot a lot of equine events and do some private sittings. Both my fiancee and I are horse people...she broke her horse as well and has had him for like 13 years now. It always cracks me up when people get dressed up and stuff. I'm not judgemental... just always makes me chuckle . Happy riding and do more portraits! They are fun!

Thanks for the reply. I guess dressing up and posing with horses isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Beau is so treasured, he's more like a human than a horse (to me and my friends). He really is a character! Anyway, I would love to get more advice from someone such as yourself who has been taking horse pics for awhile - I have some questions for you. How did you decide on your pricing? And how do you think I should start out with that? I put some prices up but don't know how competitive they are etc. And when meeting with clients - do you have a standard fee/price per hour or does it depend on the type of shoot? Sorry to pick your brains like this but I gotta ask the people who know Thanks for your help in advance. Also if its easier email me at heather.kenny@hotmail. com. Heather

Awais Yaqub

:DVery cool shots enjoyed them

sirsloop

heatherkphotography wrote:

Thanks for the reply. I guess dressing up and posing with horses isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Beau is so treasured, he's more like a human than a horse (to me and my friends). He really is a character! Anyway, I would love to get more advice from someone such as yourself who has been taking horse pics for awhile - I have some questions for you. How did you decide on your pricing? And how do you think I should start out with that? I put some prices up but don't know how competitive they are etc. And when meeting with clients - do you have a standard fee/price per hour or does it depend on the type of shoot? Sorry to pick your brains like this but I gotta ask the people who know Thanks for your help in advance. Also if its easier email me at heather.kenny@hotmail. com. Heather

Pricing... idk... I let Penny worry about that and I take the photos. I think we wanted to set a price point that was low enough so people would be willing to purchase a lot of prints. I'd rather sell 10 prints for 10 bucks than one print for 100 bucks. Granted i'd make more money off the 1 print for 100, I think you'll see less overall sales. People will talk about you more too with lower prices. Ya know, a family gets their prints and are blown away. Next thing you know they have them at their barn showing all their friends telling them to check out the site. The customer gets more too which is good. Sure I get some single print sales, but I also get a lot of multiple print sales. I also kept big prints cheap. I hope people like my photos and I know that if they get a large print its likely going on their wall where they will enjoy it.

Umm... I do private sittings as well and charge a flat fee. I think we charge around $200 to come out for a couple hours, shoot up to three horses, and provide either an 8x10 print (drop ship) or digital image. We charge additional for extra horses (its just for time really), and additional prints can be proofed and purchased off Smugmug. Actually just had to cancel/reschedule one last weekend due to rain... bummer cause it sounded like we were gonna do all sorts of crazy stuff like you posted above There was talk about stopping traffic with a tractor too or something... idk... I kinda want to drive the tractor!!

heatherkphotography

Thanks!

Awais Yaqub wrote:

:DVery cool shots enjoyed them

Thanks for the kind words...always good to hear from a more experienced photographer

Awais Yaqub

heatherkphotography wrote:

always good to hear from a more experienced photographer

heatherkphotography

Thanks for all your feedback!

sirsloop wrote:

Pricing... idk... I let Penny worry about that and I take the photos. I think we wanted to set a price point that was low enough so people would be willing to purchase a lot of prints. I'd rather sell 10 prints for 10 bucks than one print for 100 bucks. Granted i'd make more money off the 1 print for 100, I think you'll see less overall sales. People will talk about you more too with lower prices. Ya know, a family gets their prints and are blown away. Next thing you know they have them at their barn showing all their friends telling them to check out the site. The customer gets more too which is good. Sure I get some single print sales, but I also get a lot of multiple print sales. I also kept big prints cheap. I hope people like my photos and I know that if they get a large print its likely going on their wall where they will enjoy it.

Umm... I do private sittings as well and charge a flat fee. I think we charge around $200 to come out for a couple hours, shoot up to three horses, and provide either an 8x10 print (drop ship) or digital image. We charge additional for extra horses (its just for time really), and additional prints can be proofed and purchased off Smugmug. Actually just had to cancel/reschedule one last weekend due to rain... bummer cause it sounded like we were gonna do all sorts of crazy stuff like you posted above There was talk about stopping traffic with a tractor too or something... idk... I kinda want to drive the tractor!!

Hi again, and thanks for getting back to me on all my questions. You made some very good points. I will look further into my prices to make them more competitive, esp. since I am just starting out. I have always had a love for photography, and horses actually (can ya tell), but am trying to actually get some clients and GET PAID, as they say. It's always tough to determine what you're worth at the beginning of something like this, but I will persevere! I also know that to 'get out there' I have to do alot of other advertising by way of brochures, putting work up etc. Do you think its a good idea for me to volunteer my services in order to build my portfolio? Or would that perhaps work against me later? (when they/their friends might not wanna pay for another shoot). I've looked at prices locally on places like craigslist etc. and thought about charging $50/hr to shoot pics (min 1 hr shoot when booking) and then having them order pics off smugmug. I like your idea of drop shipping them one image after - but how do you pick which one? I guess maybe one with everyone in it? Anyway, hope I'm not driving you nuts with these questions, anyone else with any ideas/suggestions feel free to gimme your input. It is all important to me!!! By the way, funny tractor pic - that guy is def enjoying himself. Is that you? Here are a couple other horse pics (non-dress up) for you to see...

sirsloop

HA... yeah thats me spreadin some poo

After the shoot I go home, soft proof the photos, upload them, and let the customer choose which photo they want. To get some initial shows I sent out flyers to local farms. I got a few contacts, but word or mouth and networking has been a lot more successful for me. I don't think you have to volunteer to do anything for free. You obviously have some horses there so spend some time shooting them and you'll have all the photos you need.

I do a lot of barter type work with friends. I shoot a lot out at the farm Penny has her horse at. I've got no problems giving away photos there. In return the farm owner literally painted their house and brought in a landscaping company to fix up the farm for our wedding that they are letting us hold there... THIS SATURDAY :wow:wow. I've also had a couple friends give birth to little girls. I'll stop by and take family photos for them and put them up on the site for free download , etc, etc. I don't have to, but thats what friends are for right?

a couple recent shots I really like... one of Penny on Big Bad Bug and another of one of a somewhat grown up pony that they bred there. I think the bottom photo... that horse recently got inspected and got an Oldenburg brand.

heatherkphotography

Ok - that makes sense...

sirsloop wrote:

HA... yeah thats me spreadin some poo

After the shoot I go home, soft proof the photos, upload them, and let the customer choose which photo they want. To get some initial shows I sent out flyers to local farms. I got a few contacts, but word or mouth and networking has been a lot more successful for me. I don't think you have to volunteer to do anything for free. You obviously have some horses there so spend some time shooting them and you'll have all the photos you need.

I do a lot of barter type work with friends. I shoot a lot out at the farm Penny has her horse at. I've got no problems giving away photos there. In return the farm owner literally painted their house and brought in a landscaping company to fix up the farm for our wedding that they are letting us hold there... THIS SATURDAY :wow:wow. I've also had a couple friends give birth to little girls. I'll stop by and take family photos for them and put them up on the site for free download , etc, etc. I don't have to, but thats what friends are for right?

a couple recent shots I really like... one of Penny on Big Bad Bug and another of one of a somewhat grown up pony that they bred there. I think the bottom photo... that horse recently got inspected and got an Oldenburg brand.

Thanks for your reply - it makes sense that you let them pick their first photo - do you ship that to them via smugmug also? Wow, that barter stuff really worked out for you huh? CONGRATULATIONS on your wedding!! Make sure you get lots of pics taken... Like your recent horse shots too. Big Bad Bug sure has some muscles with all those veins sticking up like that - does Penny show him alot? Hope to hear back, take care H