Horse birthdays.
What better way to celebrate international horse birthday day than by sharing horse photographs.
It’s 1st August, the day we celebrate horses birthdays. It’s an odd idea that instead of celebrating their actual birthday or their adoption day we collectively decide to just pick a random day to celebrate. Odd or not, if it’s good enough for the Queen then I guess it is good enough for our equine buddies.
As it is all horses’ birthday today I thought it would be a good day to share some photos of a recent horse shoot. During the school holidays my 3 kids and I popped out to a friend’s mini farm so my eldest could video their sheep for a school project. While we were out there Sophie very kindly let all my kids have a ride on her horse Cruze. This absolutely made my kids day and the smiles were the biggest I’ve seen in a long time.
A horse photoshoot
After Sophie shared Cruze with everyone else it was time for her to have a ride. When we had organised the catch up, Sophie’s mum, Jane, asked if I could get some photos of Cruze in his paddock so that she could print one up to go on a canvas for Sophie. Jane had perhaps mentioned that she struggles to get photos of Sophie because she really isn’t comfortable in front of the camera so while she would love a photo of Sophie, she didn’t think it would be on the cards.
Relaxed photos
One of the things that I love when I am photographing is capturing moments and celebrating all of those little moments that bring joy and make up life. Too often in photographs everything is posed and stiff and awkward. When you come back to look at those photos they don’t spark joy because you remember feeling stiff and awkward. What I try and do is get relaxed posed photos but I want to make photoshoots fun and I want my photos to capture that happiness and enjoyment that a person feels in that moment. That way when you look back at the photos you wont remember feeling awkward, instead you will remember the fun and enjoyment of the moment. In order to do that I need to have the people I’m photographing relaxed and having fun. What ever it is we do to get people relaxed, be it blowing bubbles or giving big snuggles or just having a conversation and a chat I take photos of those candid, relaxed, happy moments as well.
A girl and her horse
Like many little girls Sophie fell in love with horses from a young age and started riding lessons at 10 years old. Sophie’s parents surprised her with a trail ride for her 10th birthday and that was the beginning of the end! She was hooked.
After years of lessons and wanting her very own horse for oh so long Sophie’s family moved out to a property big enough to house a horse and Sophie’s wish finally came true around a year ago when Cruze came home and Sophie finally had her very own horse.
The photoshoot with Sophie wasn’t a standard photoshoot. Sophie was just doing her thing with Cruze and I asked if she would mind if I took some photos of Cruze while she was taking him around. From a photography point of view it was not an easy shoot, harsh sunlight on one side of the paddock, deep shade on the other, a fast moving horse (so limited time to change settings), and because I wasn’t directing the shoot I actually didn’t know where Sophie was going to take Cruze next, the list goes on. While it wasn’t an easy shoot it was a great fun shoot.
I absolutely loved watching Sophie interact with Cruze. I loved seeing her relax into her ride, it was wonderful to really see the joy that riding brought to Sophie, the connection that Sophie has with Cruze and none of that was impacted by the large lens I was pointing at Cruze (who earlier in the day had shied at an iPad so I didn’t know how he would go with the long lens). In fact, I think Cruze was more comfortable with making eye contact with the camera than Sophie 😊.
Click on any of the photos to see them larger.
Right at the very end of the shoot, after the fun, I got just two posed photos of Sophie and Cruze. While they are nice photos, they certainly aren’t my favourite of the shoot and I’m so glad we didn’t do a ‘pose’ photo shoot of girl and horse.
Sadly my brief for the day was to get a photo of Cruze by himself in the paddock and by the time he was actually back in the paddock it was a few hours later, the sun had gone behind clouds, it was dark, he had a coat on, he was eating his dinner and long story short I didn’t get the photo of him in the paddock. Jane and Sophie I hope these photos make up for the fact that I didn’t hit the brief 😊 (note – I am joking. I spoke with Jane when I was taking the photos and Jane was much happier to get photos of Sophie with Cruze than to get a photos of Cruze alone. Meeting the brief is important, exceeding the brief is better.)
Fabulous photos Emma. Sophie obviously loves to ride. Brilliant.