Showpig News
Perfecting Your Online Sale Photos with Kaitlyn Hofschulte
Trying to get that perfect picture for your next online sale? There are numerous steps we do here at Hofschulte Genetics to do just that! The most important thing to do is relax and have patience because you’re probably going to be in the barn all day and possibly all night.
When you’re choosing your picture pen, you are looking for 2 things. One, a solid backdrop and two, good lighting. At our farm we use the white DuraPlate on the bottom of our pens and find the brightest part of the barn. If you don’t have great lighting in your barn, I would recommend picturing near a door or window to use the natural lighting.
Next, we always make sure we have a clean pen and the pigs hair/skin looks 100%. I could go on and on about how important this is, but just grab a shovel and get after it. Once the pen has all new shavings, we bring two pigs in at a time and spray them down with laser sheen. We have found that bringing two in at a time will keep them calm and fresh shavings gives a brighter look to the photo.
Now, you are probably wondering what is the best object for the pig to follow. Here is a list of the things that we have found useful: Mud on the end of a broom stick, beer can on the end of broom stick, and Karo syrup on the end of a broom stick. Sometimes they strike a perfect pose the first time, but other times we may keep a pig in the pen for 30 minutes or longer. This is when you need a beer can for your broom stick and your patience.
A new camera is a great investment to improve your online sale photos. I shoot all of our pictures at HG with a Canon. If you don’t want to spend a ton of money on a new camera but want an upgrade from phone pictures, the Canon Rebel series is a great camera to have for your farm. There are times that I shoot hundreds of pictures for an online sale. So, always have a backup camera card.
If you combine all of these things above, you will improve your online sale pictures tremendously, but in the long run focus on making the next generation better because high quality pictures come from high quality livestock.