Horse Illustrated Magazine

Horses are popular subjects for photography and other works of art, even when the artists aren’t horse people. It’s not hard to understand why. What’s not to love about those universal symbols of beauty and power? Since we live in a time when everyone walks around with a camera on the phone in their pocket and Instagram filters can disguise a mundane image as a thought-provoking bit of modern art, there are more horse photos floating around than ever.

If you peruse your horsey friends’ Facebook albums, you’ll probably notice some of the same horse-photo themes. For example, the eyeball. When we run our annual photo contest in Horse Illustrated, we know we’ll get a pretty hefty handful of close-ups of horse eyes. This is not to say that horse eye images can’t be good. It’s a compelling vision, one which I myself am guilty of capturing even though I know full well that it’s a cliché.

Another one of these themes is the between-the-ears shots. This is a fun shot to take and to view, and I think it really embodies what people look for when sharing an image on social networking. It shows their friends and family that they’ve been out riding and are therefore not just sitting around staring at a computer screen all day. It can also show different scenes and sights, depending on how varied one’s riding locations are. It can show the changing weather conditions, and if I know anything about what people share on social media, I’d say weather is a necessary element. And finally, it includes the most important aspect of a horse owner’s life: the horse. Well, the horse’s ears, anyway.

I am very much guilty of taking too many between-the-ears shots. I’ve probably had friends hide me from their facebook news feed just to avoid being subjected to yet another image of the back of Snoopy’s head. But I can’t help it. The camera is right there. The view is right there. Now, one might argue that I should be focused on my riding and not on capturing the image, and that’s true, but…

No, there’s no “but” on this. I should really just focus on my riding. I’ll work on that. In the meantime, here’s a compilation of some of my favorite camera phone images of the back of Snoopy’s head showing the changing seasons here in Central Kentucky. I call it, “Through the Ears, through the Year.”

Aren’t Snoopy’s ears cute?

Do you see a lot of this type of image from your equestrian friends? Are you guilty of subjecting your friends to a barrage of repetitive horse photos? Or do you think there’s no such thing as too many pictures of horses? Click “Submit a Comment” below to let me know your thoughts.

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