Picture Perfect

Pictures are pretty darn important when trying to market a piece. They can make or break a sale, or be the deciding factor in whether or not your high-dollar piece actually brings in the amount it's worth. I cringe when I see dark or poorly-angled shots on the sales pages. So, I thought I'd write a little Model Horse Photography 101 article and list what I'm using at the moment to get the shots I do. I'm going to also tell you right now that good photography equipment is NOT cheap. It is, however, worth every penny and will be a much required investment if you really want to show off the quality of your work and sales pieces. 

My go-to camera is a Canon EOS 40D. It's "old" in terms of digital cameras but it continues to do it's job. I've done 10' long by 6' tall exhibit booth backdrops for the family biz with photos taken by this camera and could stand them up right next door to Garmin's booth with their high-dollar graphics and be proud of the work. I bought it used (owner used it once) back when it was being discontinued and the 50D was coming out so I got a good deal. My point is that you don't have to fork over thousands to get a really nice camera if you're smart about it. For the model horse photography, I use the standard lens that came with the camera body - which is a Canon 28-135 mm lens with the image stabilizer. 

Lighting - the god of photography. While a somewhat cloudy day is perfect for outside shots, I don't like depending on the weather. Our Colorado sunlight is especially harsh for photo subjects as well. It really is best if you can figure out a studio lighting situation. You want a temperature range that is not too cool and not too yellow or you will get green and red shots respectively. You can alter these in Photoshop if you must, but it's really better to try to set things up so you spend the least amount of time editing photos at a computer as possible. 

My personal photo area is in a basement room with a slit of a window (read: no natural light whatsoever), so I really need to make my own light. If you can let natural window light filter into your room, but not shine directly on your piece, that's best. Please please please do NOT take a photo of your horse with the window as the background. Your camera will hate you and will decide to darken your shots into just about silhouettes of whatever it was you were trying to photograph. Your camera lens reads only that it's pointing at a ton of light and so therefore adjusts the brightness of the shot down to compensate, giving you a shadowed-out shot. You'll get this look any time you point your lens directly at a light source.  

My basement room has a ceiling fixture that is just three bulbs (no cover or anything pretty on those). Even with a flash, this is not enough light. To boost the brightness without adding glare, I did purchase (on Melanie Miller's recommendation) some "cheap" studio lights. One of these lightboxes goes on each side of my subject: http://www.amazon.com/Fancierstudio-softbox-lighting-carrying-Single/dp/B0056C0H00?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage 

The one on the left is as far away from the piece as I can get as there is shelving right behind it. I have tables on the right so that one is as close as I can get it. The ideal situation would be 1' away on each side. There are five light bulbs in each "lightbox" and so I can adjust the lighting to make it even. I usually have about three turned on in the left one and all five turned on in the right one when shooting resins. I keep mine more or less beside the subject and turned slightly away from me to face it and the background. 

 

Camera flashes are a big help, but they do create a lot of glare if you don't use them properly. You can pick up cheap-o diffusers on Amazon for under $10 that will make a huge difference in giving you more light without the shine. If you REALLY get serious, then you can do what I just did and buy a separate flash. I can't recommend this option enough. Unlike the camera's stock flash, this one is directionally adjustable and far more powerful. This means I can point the flash upward to "bounce" off the ceiling and get the nice soft glow of light without the flash glare on the horse. You can also use it as a "slave" and move it around your studio to give you different options besides the directly-in-front option. I'm using Canon's Speedlite 430ES II flash and I just love it. It's made photographing so much easier and left me with far fewer hours to put in editing photos in Photoshop. Canon has it on sale right now: 

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/cameras/flashes/speedlite-430ex-ii It's worth the money. Trust me. I wish I'd have bought this baby 10 years ago when I got the camera. 

Positioning. When it comes to model photos, nothing is more frustrating to me than seeing a shot looking down on the horse. Anyone can see how unflattering it is. It's also incredibly lazy. Bend your arse down to be looking straight at your subject. Seriously. One little squat to take a photo will not kill you. Sit on a stool if you need to. 

Another less obvious mistake I see a lot of people doing is that they put their subject 2" away from the backdrop. Now, I can understand that some folks just won't have room to much more than this, but if you can, drag your background forward several feet. This allows your camera to focus on the subject and blur out the background, making sure your eye only focuses on the part you want it to and not get cluttered with extra stuff to be distracted by. It makes an okay shot a professional-looking shot. Notice in the photo above I've also pulled the backdrop forward so that there's no "fold" in the backcorner. You want it as smooth as possible. Having your subject forward will also help to prevent the shadow of your piece showing up from the flash. 

My backdrop is painted muslin that I got from Silverlake Photo back when they sold pieces cheaper on ebay. I don't think I'd buy from them now as they're crazy-expensive. When looking for a backdrop, try to keep it neutral and medium-toned. You want something that will work with all colors of horses (gray and sand colors work well) and you want it mid-toned so that your camera has a nice mid range color to focus on to give your photograph proper white balance and not over or under expose your photos. I like a little bit of mottle just to keep it from appearing flat.  Don't go crazy with lots of color or an obnoxious color. Remember it is the BACKGROUND and your horse needs to be the star without having to clash with anything for attention. 

Hopefully this little article helps you move forward with your own model horse photography!

Roses are Bay

I finished this gal up a couple weeks ago, but have neglected to find time to put her up on the site. So, she's a great excuse for a blog post! And because I've been lax in my blogging, I'm putting a veritable smorgasbord  of photos up! Rose is a commission piece and is not for sale.

But you know who is for sale? This fabulous *ceramic* Darcy! This is #1 in the edition of 25 and is up on eBay now as a benefit auction for Laura Behning's SouthCon show. 

Click HERE to go to her auction page with all the photos!

Earthenware Darcy #2 Up At Auction

I'm thrilled to finally be able to start circulating these gals! While she's #2 in the run, this is the first earthenware Darcy finished by myself. Karen Gerhardt beat me with the first finished one out there period! ;) She has been done in overgrlazes to a nice red chestnut. Read all about her and see more pictures on her MyAuctionBarn page as she's up for bidding for the next two days!

http://myauctionbarn.com/auction_details.php?name=Earthenware-Darcy-CGd-x-Scott&auction_id=148557

A Simple Saturday Update

JerryLynn's Sencillo is up next, leaving on Mini Darcy left from the early group batch. 

JL ordered up a graying smutty buckskin overo and I, along with lots of you I'm sure, will agree this is a great color for Sencillo. He did very well at a local show she took him to the day after completion!

I'm thinking that my lighting was a bit off the night I took all these photos before I handed the horses off to their owners the next day at Springamathing. I'm really not happy with how any of these photos came out. It just seems like they're not as sharp as usual and don't seem to be picking up on the amount of depth and shading in these pieces. 

In the above photo, the interference gold and metallic gold dustings he has are really picking up the light, causing certain areas to get a yellow hue. He's really a lovely tawny color in person. 

It is apparent to me that my painting technique has now far transcended my photography skillz! I will have to work harder to take more flattering photos!

In the Storm

Since there's a storm going on all around us, I thought it befitting my next completed horse showcase be of the Stormwatch resin. This guy is a lot of people's favorite resin and it's not hard to see why. He has an enormous amount of presence! And frankly, his head is probably the finest in the hobby.

He was a long time coming for his owner! I just kept finding little spots I wanted to fix up. There comes a point when you just have to learn to call a model done or you will have it for the rest of your life though. I think I'm like that with just about all my grays. 

There is a lot of detail in this guy, though it's really hard to spot in the photos. Many individually painted hairs exist on this piece!

On come those fantabulous head shots. You can kinda sorta begin to see the little hairing detail this guy sports. I love the way his paint job came out on his face!

Is it even possible to put a bad paint job on this face? Probably not.

Stormy was a commission, but I do believe his owner is getting out of the hobby, so you may see him come up for sale shortly!

Next up...Reiner #4

My brain muscles got a work out at work today so while they'll be superman strong tomorrow, tonight is sadly lacking in the thought department. Hence, boring title. Pictures will make up for it!

I figured I'd move into the next Colorado horse, but then I realized that every horse photo'd with the exception of Dainy Darcy in that group shot was a CO horse. Funny how that worked out. Either way, Jane's Reiner is next. 

 He's the fourth Reiner I started, and I've still got a few more to paint. He's another I took off the base and then added Rio Rondo slider shoes on back/reg shoes on front. And another that didn't photograph near as well as he looks in person. 

 It's the layering thing. You can kind of get an idea of the depth of color in the angle shots where the eye gets a different angle through the color rather than looking straight on. 

Jane and I were talking about how we both agreed that all our favorite Reiner heads had nice big blazes. They really do look good on this horse! And I kept his a little interesting with those jagged edges.

Until next time!

A Round of Photos

So, since the website is down for major updating, the blog gets to be the star child here in posting a batch of those new photos for all the models I finished lately. I'm still learning the little differences between CS2 and CS6 (oh my) so photo editing is a bit of a pain right now. By editing, I mean cropping, adjusting color to get it as close as possible to the real model, and adding my copyright tag. My camera and light setup get me pretty close, but not 100% there. 

Last update you got a peek at the lineup. Well, more have been added since that photo, but let's start with those, huh? First up...drumroll please... is Roundapony! If you click the link you'll see Roundapony is a collaboration of sorts between lots of Colorado gals. He's Karen Gerhardt's Roudabout cob resin (I think she has only a couple of these left in resin if you want to buy one!), and is actually one of the master waste mold casts. That cast made it into Jennifer Buxton's capable hands where he got transformed from a Classic scale British Heavy Show Cob to a Traditional scale pony because 1) Jennifer has a *bit* of a *thing* for ponies, and 2) she only shows Trad. performance. Lastly, this cutie made his way to me! 

I am a huge fan of well-done customizing. To me, not only does the customizing have to be realistic, correct anatomically, and done with professional caliber, it has to "match the piece." It has to be changed, but remain the same if that makes any sense. How Jennifer managed to take a horse that was meant to be a British Heavy Show Cob and turn him into a cute little show pony and keep him ultimately the same horse I can't put into words, but she did just that.

This guy's color is so shiny and glowing in person I'm a little disappointed that the photos can't get that kind of detail. Seems to be a constant problem of mine. /Whine. 

He has such a cute face!

The braids came out great! Jennifer did such a nice job on them she gets to do more of them for me on another model! :D

I love how nicely he looks with his hunter clip too! And it was *so* much fun to paint! That pinto pattern really helped me show it off too with that white hair contrasted on the body colored ones!

As you can see, all that Colorado work really came together nicely on this piece! I'm always hoping to do more stuff like this as it's fun to work with ladies like Jennifer and Karen. Stay tuned for the next model up! You'll just have to wait and see who it is!