So caveat right off the bat. There will be a few pictures in this blog that I have deleted that I will use for demonstration purposes that I have actually already deleted off my phone as I don't keep bad pictures. From my dogs, horses or cows I immediately get rid of anything that makes my animals look bad. After all if I am selling them at some point I don't want ugly pictures for people to see. I remember one guy asking why my border collies were more expensive than others available online. I merely told him to look at them and he did purchase one of mine. Some people just snap away and post pics that are very off of their animals and then wonder why people are not willing to pay a decent price.
Lighting is important and with animals I have found that having bright sunshine coming from behind you is great. Animals don't seem to squint like humans and the bright light takes out any shadows that would otherwise hide the body of the animal. In this picture below you see the shadow on ground in front of her and her lower body seems to disappear and her beautiful brindle color is not seen.
Now in this picture with sun directly behind and above you see her great color and body condition and this is the same cow. (background not so good and stance not perfect)
Next lets talk about background. I have taken many pics and had to delete them because of some random object in the background that completely ruins the picture. I am much more aware of it now and mostly avoid taking it as I know I am not going to keep it. But a good back ground for mini longhorns is one that shows off their horns and nothing seems to do it better than God's great big blue sky. Now finding a way to get this is not easy. Only recently I found a great place that I can use in the mornings only to get the blue sky behind them and clean of other distractions.
You kind of lose this importance until you see how it shows off their horns and compare it to ones without the clean background like this one below. A great picture but her horns get lost in the trees which is one of their great traits. The cow below has great twisted horns growing out good but you can't really tell.
Next lets talk about their stance as the one about is in pretty good stance for a photo. She does have some shadows across her front neck line but over all her stance is great. When you post pictures of them not squared up or if your not taking it from pretty much a 90 degree angle then it tends to distort their body. Here is a collection of pictures that show what I am talking about. If you have a zoom lens you can eliminate some of this. I use my phone and it seems to get better quality if I don't zoom but get as close as I can. The problem with it is that being close is seems that what ever part of their body is closest to you it seems to enlarge and make it look distortedly larger.
Last tip I will give is to get at their body level. Several of the above pictures show that the cow is lower than my camera. This makes her look odd. Some of them are on the same level with her and the black one above is on the level. This really tends to help get pictures that are a better representation of the animals and worthy of your best price. I have read a lot and put into practice things I have learned that have made for better pictures. I hope you enjoy this website and blog.
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