Photographing horses in Menorca

One of the great photo opportunities we often enjoy on our photography holidays in Menorca is the chance to photograph horses – very special horses. We spend some time at the trotting races, where we are welcomed to visit the stables and photograph the race preparations. We use the races themselves as exercises in panning technique and I teach everyone the art of ‘following through’ with the camera as the subjects race past – very much like the ‘follow though’ in a golf swing. This has produced some fantastic shots… you may remember Maria Falconer’s action-packed picture I posted some time ago. Click here.

Now most photographers need a fair bit of help and practice to perfect the panning technique, but on our latest holiday we had one snapper, George Greenhill, who amazed us all with his panning accuracy. Even when the horses were racing past us a top speed, the horses and riders were always perfectly framed in every picture he took. It was uncanny just how easy he found it to get great panned action pictures.

I expected that George had done this before, so I asked him where he had learned the technique.

“In the army,” said George, “I was a machine gunner”.

I would hate to be on the receiving end of Georges sure-fire technique.

Menorca is famous for, among other thing, its dancing horses. These jet black beauties are taught the most extraordinary dressage routines and to rear up on their hind legs. The horses are a great attraction at fiestas and weddings. Our photography group was lucky enough to witness a wedding party at our hotel at which the rearing horses were to be a great attraction.

The party was held at night in the street outside the Hotel, so the light was just about as difficult as it could possibly be. But just look at these two photographs produced by Ken Terry – fantastic pictures that have captured the wonderful atmosphere of the event. Ken used his new Canon EOS-1D Mk111. He pushed the ISO right up to 3200 and was able to shoot at 1/30sec at f3.2

There are more pictures and stories from Menorca to come.

These holidays have proved a great success and if you’d like to join us next year please let me know as soon as possible. I’ll be putting the dates and costs up on the photoactive website very soon.

Pictures by Ken Terry and George Greenwell

Photographic viewpoints

I suppose photographers might be roughly separated into two types – those who, when they spot a vantage point, and assuming they are able, simply have to climb up it to see what the view is like from the top, and those who can’t be bothered. I’ve spent a lot of my working life as a travel photographer climbing up hillsides, towers, walls, stairs, onto rooftops and leaning out of upper floor windows. You simply never quite know exactly what you are going to see until you make the effort to get up there and look down on the world.

Of course, you can make an educated judgement of what you might see; you will certainly have looked around from ground level a judged the angles and the light, but the view from the top can often take you completely by surprise. The most wonderful scenes can be revealed and, best of all, the most intriguing pictures of people can be captured.

If it surprises you how few photographers bother to look down, it is even more surprising how few people ever bother to look up. That means the photographer who takes the trouble to find a high vantage point can often work very effectively without being spotted. If you are at all nervous about photographing people this can be a useful technique to try.

The picture above was taken in eastern Turkey. Several pony carts had trotted by and I had photographed them, but the background was very busy and distracting. Fortunately there was a small cliff face running alongside the road – the perfect vantage point – so I climbed to the top. The great benefit was that by looking down on the scene, I was able to eliminate all the background and show only the dusty road.

And did I say nobody ever bothers to look up? Well this eagle-eyed chap did – and gave me a friendly wave as he trotted by with his family.