Photographing the Barrel Horse by Heather Green

Photographing the barrel racer.

It's taken me years (without help or classes) to learn the art of equine action photography. Knowing when to press the shutter at the precise moment is key! Don't rely on holding the shutter release button down and automatically shooting several frames and picking the 'right' one.

Barrel Racing is a fun sport to watch and participate in. But I've seen some horrible pictures over the years.

So, here are some things I've learned....

Do not get your hopes set on photographing the first barrel unless you are at a barrel race with professional riders (even then, it's not always a good shot). The first barrel is one of the hardest to master by horse and rider. Usually what happens is the horse runs too far past it, too close to it, and could even knock it over. Most professional barrel racers run into this problem occasionally, too.

The best barrel is the second barrel. Usually all horses take this barrel well. You want your photo to show the horse and rider coming out from the turn, with the rider looking up to the next barrel.

The third barrel (and last) is alot of fun, too. You can get some really good action shots here. The horse is really digging in to get around it, the dirt is flying, sometimes the rider's inside foot is literally 12" from the ground, depending on how hard the horse is turning.

Here are some examples....


Knocking over the first barrel
(rider's head was purposely cut out of the shot)




The third barrel
(I purposely cropped out the barrel here for 'effect'




You can turn a 'bad' shot....shown here...



Into a really interesting one by cropping...



And you can play with photo programs to add 'effects'...like here:




All in all...it just takes practice, practice, practice to get the right shots. Learn your camera and it's functions.

You can view all of my equine photography here:
www.heathergreen.net

Oh, by the way....
I use a Canon Digital Rebel. The 6mp version. With a 300mm USM lens. I pretty much ONLY use my zoom lens when taking action shots.

I assume you could use a regular digital camera that has an 'action' mode as long as it is at least 6mp because you are going to need to 'crop' the photo to get all of the unnecessary background out of it because your zoom on that camera isn't going to get you close enough.