Brilliant Backdrops

If you have somehow missed it (even thought I’ve not shut up about it over the last month), I’ve just launched a new option for everyone who loves the portrait shoots: The white background.

This is something I’ve not yet seen on the equine photography market, especially not in the way that I shoot. The classic black background is one of the most popular options for portraits out there, it’s simple, elegant, and can generally be accomplished with some time consuming editing by most photographers when done with natural light (I won’t bore you all with the in depth technical reasoning behind how my work differs to natural light portrait photographers, don’t worry - there’s a whole blog about that here if you’re interested though).

But a big concern for a lot of horse owners who have much darker coloured horses, is the horse getting a little lost against a black backdrop, him losing his “pop” in the image.

Now this isn’t an issue I really have to deal with using off camera flash, and often hear surprised comments of how good the dark horses I’ve shot look in the finished product. But in the same way that a grey really stands out against a black backdrop with that glorious contrast, I wanted to bring something to the market that had the same affect for our bays and blacks.

At the end of January I posted that I was looking for some equine models to help me launching this project, I was looking for a black Friesian with lots of mane, a fine black thoroughbred, and a grey highland, again with lots of mane. I had an overwhelming response which made for a very full on week of replying to all messages and organising everyone into an already packed diary, and even ended up adding 2 extra horses into this.

1 was a lovely black fell mare, who I included because I love to represent the fantastic native breeds we have here in the UK, as well as showing potential clients that you don’t have to have the fanciest warmblood or Lusitano to book in for a portrait shoot. These shoots are for every breed out there (And I actually have a bit of a soft spot for shooting natives!)

And the second additional horse was one I spotted when covering a clinic at Somerford, a truly eye catching Connie x TB who was bay roan. As soon as I spotted him I just KNEW I had to shoot him, one for how unusual he was, but secondly to show that horses with colour can also look striking against the white background.

So enough about the logistics of shooting and how it all got going, I’m sure you all want to know about what these shoots entail, how much they cost, and how you can get your horse booked in.

From a set up perspective, these work exactly the same as the black background shoots, except instead of me putting up a black background behind your horse, I put up a white background.
Just like the black background shoots, these do need to be done in an indoor space, a minimum of 14ft wide. Wide stable alleyways work great, or a big barn. Washboxes are also an option, so long as they are open fronted, stables do not work because of the lack of open space in front meaning I can’t position my lighting around the horse appropriately, nor do we have enough room to pose him well. The gold standard of location will always be a an indoor arena though, we have unlimited space to play and it makes for the most straightforward option, with a number of my clients hiring an indoor for their shoot.

Because of the similarities between this and the black BG shoot, they don’t cost you any extra! They are priced exactly the same at £325, which includes your shoot time, all low resolution digital files (I now have the option for you to purchase all high res images should you wish to print your own images at £495), and a private viewing session when your images are ready.

I have also created the option for you to have both colour backdrops during your shoot, for an additional £25 you can have both black and white backgrounds on your shoot - the best of both worlds if you’re not sure what to go for!

With the launching of this new product, I’ve even streamlined the booking process and created an online booking system, meaning you can book your portrait shoot in less than 10 minutes whilst sitting on the sofa with a cuppa.

Simply follow this link, select the shoot package you’d like, select any add ons, such as additional horses, additional backdrops, or high res images, select your date, pay a 25% deposit to secure the date, and voila! You’re all booked in!

The prices on the website do not include mileage, so please take this into consideration if you’re quite a distance away from me (I’m near Shrewsbury, Shropshire).

Once you’re booking in, I’ll reach out to chat about any additional details, and arrange how you’d like to pay the rest, be that as a lump sum, or broken down over several instalments.