How to become an Equine Photographer

What is an equine photographer?

An equine photographer is someone who predominantly photographs horses. 

There are lots of different categories within equine or equestrian photography, such as equine portrait photography, showing photography, showjumping photography, eventing photography and dressage photography.

If you are a commercial photographer who shoots for equine brands and knows how to photograph a horse, you might also consider yourself an equine photographer.

How much does an equine photographer earn?

As you may expect, this is a difficult question to answer, because how much you might earn as an equine photographer depends on a lot of factors.

For example, a full-time photographer will generally earn more than a part-time photographer.

Other factors include the sort of equine photography you do. Equine portrait photographers or commercial photographers will earn more per hour but may do fewer shoots per week due to the editing time required afterwards.  Event photography generally has a lower day rate but you may string together many consecutive days and have no editing to do.

Most photographers mix together different sorts of equine work for variety and to maximise income. If you do equine photography full time and work hard at it you can earn anywhere between £30,000 and £100,000. Earning above £90,000 will require registration for VAT which will involve extra work on the accounts.

What qualifications do I need to become an equine photographer?

As far as formal college courses go, none. Zip. Nada.

Having said that, photography education is never a bad thing. For example, a good understanding of how the exposure triangle works, or how to use lighting and flash can be very important, but a lot of successful equine photographers are self (and experience) taught.

There are two things I would recommend. One is reading and one is in service training.

It is easy to learn about the skills required for equine photography online. There are some very good courses and memberships around, for example, this membership by Nico Morgan which is very cheap for lifetime access to members-only articles and advice. These online resources give you access to first-hand experience from others and tips that may not seem obvious at all.

As an equine photographer I also always recommend on-the-job training to aspiring photographers. Your knowledge of what editorial clients will publish and riders will buy will rise exponentially with a few days of event photography for an established company. They will teach you how they want photos to look and what settings to use in a way that would otherwise take years of experience to learn. Indeed there are equine photographers who have never done that sort of experience who still make basic mistakes because they are stuck in their ways. Several of the big event photography companies run training days which are completely free and give you a sound basic knowledge of what they require from you.