What ever happened to common sense?
An equine pain face comprising low and or asymmetrical ears, an angled appearance of the eyes, a withdrawn and or tense stare, medio laterally dilated nostrils and tension of the lips..
What did ever happen to common sense? In general it seems to have flown out the window long time ago. Yesterday I followed a discussion online about a horse and if or if not the horse came with a pain face.
I can totally see the value in keeping our four legged friends safe and sound and happy.
But I can also totally relate to the fact that a lot of the things causing the biggest stirs out there, all comes down to snapshots taken out of context!
Yes, you read it correctly, snaphots taken out of context!
Je suis photographer
For over a decade I spent every weekend about ten months of the year on the road to visit equestrian events, as a photographer.
This means I am not only basing my indeed very much unscientific findings on my back ground as an educated riding instructor and former trainer of both horses and riders.
But also on the many, many horses I have made photos of horses in competition.
So yes, I have seen what people of today refer to as pain face. Can I say these pain faces are common? No, I really can’t.
Cause the majority of the photos showing pain faces are NOT pain faces, in most cases they are snapshots of horses caught in a certain moment.
When one shoot ten frames a second ONE photo in a series of ten can show a pain face. ONE photo in the series can also indicate the nose band is too tight.
To not create any confusion about this, YES there are horses with actual pain faces and YES there are way too many nosebands being tightened too much out there.
Still a lot, technically most, of the material coming out to the public on these topics are SNAPSHOT moments.
