The photo shoots I have done with Farnam Horse in the past were general “Library-Building” projects where we tried to get as many photos as possible across the brand segments. This time, we focused just on fly control. They have a lot of new products in this segment being launched soon, so there was a need for a lot of photography.

We did two days of shooting; one at Copeland Farms, which has english riders, and one at Exclusive Equine, which has western riders. 

Many of the images they were looking for needed to be taken inside a barn, which posed a challenge as lighting inside more barns is not conducive to photography. I debated whether to use strobe lighting such as flashes that fire quickly, or video lights that are always on. The advantage of strobe lighting is they put out a lot of light, so images can be cleaner with less noise. The disadvantage is spooking the horses! I opted for video lighting. They are generally less scary to horses and it’s easy to see where the light is going to fall on people and horses. The lower light output also allowed me to balance ambient and artificial light to make for a softer transition between the foreground and background. I’ll share a photo at the end with my setup.