Senior Pictures With Horses (Saline, MI)

Sometimes the trickiest part of a senior portrait session isn’t choosing the clothes, or even selecting a meaningful location…. it’s making sure the horse isn’t afraid of the camera equipment! But that’s why we do a little extra planning ahead of time when we include animals in a portrait session — so I can know what to expect and make the best of any situation.

Maggie’s horse, Lainey, was very used to being photographed, so I could use my studio lights during this senior portrait session 🙂 ….had Lainey been frightened by the flashes of light, I would have planned for a natural light portrait session instead.

We started off with some lovely fall portraits of Maggie with her horse. You’ll see how gorgeous the portraits are in just a moment. But let me tell you, finding the fall colors? A little tricky! Most of the leaves had fallen by the time we did this session last year, so I had to find the best of what we had to work with. Doesn’t it look nice though?

Maggie’s mom stayed beside me the whole duration of the session… with a broom in her hand.

Why a broom?

Well, she was holding the broom over my head and waving it so that Lainey, the horse, would pay attention to me and have her ears facing the camera. Because if you’re on an equestrian team, you’ll already know that a horse’s ears need to be facing forward in photos.

I’m sure it was a pretty funny sight — Me making silly sounds so that the horse would look the right way, a broom waving around my head….

Near the end of the session, Lainey heard the feed pails — some of the other horses at the stable were getting their dinner. She perked up her ears really nicely for that portrait! But after that, she was on a one track mind…. dinner. We called it quits for the day, especially since it was too cold for the final outfit (a summer dress).

I love this portrait of Maggie with Lainey. As we were walking past one of the barns, I spotted this window and asked Maggie if she thought Lainey would get into position there. As you can see, we succeeded!

If you have a horse or other animal you’d like to be photographed with for your senior portraits, please contact the studio so we can talk details and decide on the best way to make your animal relaxed and comfortable for your portrait experience!

Location: Saline, MI.

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