At the sale
For the last seven years I’ve taken photos at an annual horse auction. The first time I was bored so I started taking pictures. Who knew a few people might want them. This isn’t a big-paying gig. Gratuities really. They’ve been nice.
But because it’s not a high pressure assignment, I take the opportunity to try new things. If it doesn’t work out what are they going to do? This year I used my opportunity to mess with flash systems. Recently I rediscovered “The Beast.” It’s a late 70s vintage Sunpak 520 and is commonly called a “potato masher.” Found a cord at Paramount Cords I could use to connect The Beast to radio trigger to set the thing off with my camera.
So I toggled together the trigger and the flash and a large Rogue Flashbender on a light stand and set it up where it could bathe the area with diffused light. Then I put a regular speed light on a stand with a diffuser to fill in some shadows from the opposite direction. On top of my camera I used another speed light set at a TTL setting so I could move around and have the scene well lit. Horse arenas have notoriously bad lighting.
All things considered, I think it worked well. The horses run by in front of you a few times and basically you can snap one or two pictures on each pass. Mostly I wanted them well lit and the action stopped so people can see the horses.
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