For Equine Photographers : How to Improve your Session Flow
Your session workflow is one of the most important parts of your client experience and should be seamless from start to finish. You want your clients to feel comfortable and relaxes, and do your best to make them forget they are even in front of the camera. For this to happen you need to be sure on your feet, confident, calm and a friendly presence. While I know you are calm, friendly and confident person, this can easily go out the window when you step into the high stress situation of a session, where there are expectations and so many things going on at once. This is why you need to have a plan going into your session so that you can do your best to give your client the amazing experience that they deserve and that is going to have them leaving raging reviews for your business!
Feeling overwhelmed during a session and not sure what to do next? Walk it out!
This gives the client and horse an opportunity to relax and lets you think of what to do next. Walking is one of the least stressful poses there is and gives both photographer and the client the opportunity to take the focus off of posing and get back to a more natural state. Take this time to get your focus back on the next poses and refocus your session flow if it has gotten off track, and obviously capture some great candid and natural moments while you’re at it!
Have a set plan of poses going into a session, know how to direct for each one and in what order you want to go through them
Posing is hard, especially without a plan! You can often be stuck thinking about what to do next or have your client repeating the same poses over and over again in different locations, resulting in a gallery that doesn’t live up to your client’s expectations. How can you prevent this? Have a set list of poses that are dynamic and interesting! Not sure where you start? I offer a full horse and rider posing guide with 25+ pages full of poses and advice to help your sessions go smoothly!
Play music during your session, this helps to open everyone up and make them more comfortable
This one is pretty self explanatory! Music helps everyone to relax, even the horses and is sure to make your session feel more comfortable and natural. You can even ask your clients ahead of time in a pre-session questionnaire about their favourite artists and songs so that you’re sure to have a playlist that they will be jamming out to!
