What is the best kind of background?

Hello all! I'm very new to model photography and i'm curious, what kind of background is most sucessful for showing your model? Do photographs work well, being outside, or is it better to have just a grey backdrop?

Great question! I think a simple answer would be a background that compliments your horse best. For halter specifically (performance does much better when the background is realistic to the scene it is trying to portray), as long as the background isn't distracting from the horse, it should do fine. People use single-color backgrounds, multi-colored backgrounds, the outdoor scenery, or even just their bedroom wall, all successfully. What is most important is that your model stands out against it so that it can easily be seen and that whatever is in the background isn't distracting from the model, for example a very busy or cluttered background that makes it hard to focus on the model.

For halter showing, a really useful background is just a large sheet of stiff paper, roughly medium grey, and then gently curved to be both the footing and the background. An art store should have paper like this inexpensively. Lighting is important and some models want different lighting than others. Experiment! You may find too that some models look better with different backgrounds and lighting.

You can also try using a draped blanket, a plain wall, or outdoors.

Also: the further your model can be from the background, in general, the better it will work out.

If you want to bring your model horse "to life", you can make realistic backdrops from a number of different sources. I live in a (mostly) rural area so I make most of my own from photos I take locally. For smaller models, natural scenes from calendar pages can work great.

If you live in an urban area, local parks may have a nice treeline or expanse of field that can work. It's not expensive to have a poster size print done of a photo from Snapfish or SmugMug, or other online photo services, for bigger models. As pipa advised, be careful not to create a scene so "busy" it distracts from your model.

Some ideas here. :-)

I started to create a tutorial on backgrounds, and model horse photography per se, but I never finished it. :/

Anyways, for a few more hints & tips, you can view the tutorial here: https://bit.ly/356MUMA

Have fun!!

Cheers,

Excellent tips! You should finish that up, but it's already helpful as it is.

Oh, and I love the stable scene, and I *want* that Appaloosa!! :-D