The rider was inexperienced, and towards the end the horse was a little skittish. We had a handler on hand the whole time to try and calm her.
Having never shot horses before, what should I have been looking for/focusing on?
For starters, NEVER believe a person telling you they are an experienced rider. EVER. And I am only half kidding you there. The majority thinks they are much better than they really are.
However....
Well, trying to annalyse the shots for you....
#1, well...her eyes are closed, horses eyes are closed, she looks like she is about to flap her wings and fly away....the horse looks like a punk, crossed with a mule.
There is a horse in the picture and her endowment shines....about the best that can be said.
#2 is actually a lovely picture. The horse has his ears pricked, a nice moment there before he devours the poor flower. (personally I can't shake the feeling that the young lady was not all that comfortable on the horse, either because you were shooting or else, but that can cause horses to get fidgedy) I am not liking the background much, but that's how farm life is. When the pose is right you got the manure pile in the back (although I have seen a few pictures where the manure pile was meticulously edited out of the frame.
#3 again, nothing really you can do about the background. It's a loud colored horse on a busy background. That's life.
It's a nice shot: the ears are pricked again, the angle of the neck is pleasing. What could be better is if the rider actually had the reins or turned them completely lose. If she were, like in the 2nd shot to look at what the horse is looking at. But over all a pleasing angle/composition.
#4 well...the horse looks like he is about to do something stupid. Must be a horse eating squirrel near by. the neck looks good, but the body is kind of urgh: you can see the 4 legs kinda sort of. It's not terrible, but not really good, a bit hard to explain.
When you shoot horses you don't want a single part of the anatomy to stick out. My sister had a fan who would take pictures of her at shows. The rather long ears of her mare would always feature prominently in the pictures, she almost looked like a mule! Depending on the discipline people like to have the phase of movement just so (and this is really the hard part): Dressage riders prefer a trot picture with the legs on your side being 'open' meaning the front reaches, the back just pushed off. The hole horse looks open, you can see the legs on the far side as the back reaches and the front just pushed off. all for should be in the air 'suspension we call it'
Over jumps you want to catch the horse as it reaches the middle of the jump with it's legs, the 'knees' and lower legs nicely tucked under, ears pricked. Or as the horse is over the middle of the jump, especially an oxer, in mid flight. (an oxer is a jump type, high as well as wide, you will usually see what looks like two jumps pushed together, normally a lot of colorful poles on the front one, one or two on the back one, sometimes some funny stuff in the middle) the horse really has to reach over those.
When the horse is 'worked' they often turn their ears toward the rider. That does not automatically mean they are mad as long as they are not pinned back. That is also a desirable picture.
'hunter' people seem to like pictures in the 'canter' (like a gallop just slower) when all four are in the air and kind of under the body.
Racers? Well, as the nose crosses the finish line first
. but if that can't be had, either as the above hunter one, or all stretched out.
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/
In the sidebar are some more pictures, and you can ask the ladies for their opinion (
but be warned: your client might be a member! Or somebody there knows her!)
overall, for a first time, not bad.
One more thing, I know the color pallet of yours is a bit on the cooler side, but it seems like horses do best if you warm up the shades a bit. I am guessing the sun was beating down on you and as I recall even NYS is in a bit of a drought, but the grass looked a bit washed out.
anything else? Well, I am not telling you anything about the equipment, except that when I did horses (sadly pre digital, so I don't have any handy to show, plus most are at my dad's house) I liked the 200mm lens. It does not give you too much reach (it barely got the there side of the arena when my sister showed, 20 meters....) but it has a good range to where you can stay out from under the horse. A plastic baggy of some kind is always good to get the ears to come forward, too. Candy wrappers can work wonders.
http://photo.net/photos/WojtekKwiatkowski
Another link to stunning pictures.
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