hassighedgehog Loc: Corona, CA

Am I correct in thinking the white pony is a Welsh pony?

jpgto Loc: North East Tennessee

Very nice, well done

Szalajj Loc: Salem, NH

Maybe a Conamara, if memory serves me correctly.

Szalajj Loc: Salem, NH

As a former rider, could I make a suggestion for your next horse show photo shoot?

The close-ups are good, but for the shots over fence, try to position yourself at a little more of a diagonal to the fences you plan to shoot, so that the horses or ponies are sort of coming a little towards you. You want a fast shutter speed, to stop the action, but you also want an f-stop that is close to or higher than f-8 to get your subjects into sharp focus without too shallow a depth of field. Personally I would use f-16. But that means that you might have to push your ISO up to keep enough light on the subject.

It's a challenge to shoot along the ring fence and not lean in to get a better angle, because some horses will spook at the movement right in front of them.

Years ago, I was doing a trail class on a borrowed pony who spooked at the noise of nails in a box that had to be taken out of a mailbox and shown to the judge, before being replaced into the mailbox. That's where I ran into problems, because he had sidestepped away from the mailbox, so I put both hands on the reins to direct him back to the mailbox, and the nails rattled!

The next thing that I knew I had ditched the box, and we were bolting across the fairgrounds headed right for a bottleneck of people on the way to the horse van. After pulling the pony's neck around so that his nose was touching my boot toe with NO change of direction, I executed an emergency dismount. I hit the ground landing on both feet while still holding onto the reins, but he kept right on going, spun me around, and was headed to parts unknown. Yes someone in the crowd caught him, while others came to my aid. Thank goodness there were no serious injuries to either of us, I ended up with a bruised tailbone, and my boot heel ripped my jodhpurs.