Portrait Days - Coming to a yard near you

It’s no secret that I love shooting black and full background portraits. The simplicity and elegance of them, the way you can completely encapsulate who a horse is, the way the light sculpts out every detail and stands a horse out from that backdrop, bringing him to the centre of attention. I love it all.

The other joy of portraits is that I’m able to shoot more of them in a day than I could a Horse & Rider session, as H&R shoots take a considerable amount more resources to execute, especially since they can’t be shot in one singular location (moving lighting equipment over distance is highly energy consuming), plus, with the addition of a human in images, it requires even more editing work.
With this in mind, I made the decision to start running equine portrait days at local livery yards, giving people who keep their horses on these yards the opportunity to have their horses turned into living art without the full cost of a shoot.

The first one was at S&G Equine on the 30th April. It was a busy morning with a great variety of horses to work with.
Each slot was charged at £95.00 per horse, to include 4 retouched low resolution digital files and a 30 minute black background portrait session. I allowed an hour for each client, meaning we’d have plenty of time to desensitise each horse to my equipment, allowing them all the time they needed to take everything in. The last thing I want to do when shooting is to rush a horse through the process of getting used to it all.
Not only does a hurried horse look worried in the images, it goes against my personal ethos when working with horses and is the best way to ensure things going wrong, usually resulting in an unhappy horse, potentially damaged equipment, and risking injury to any humans involved.

As expected, some horses saw the flash, has a sniff, and then didn’t acknowledge it in any other way. Whereas others took a considerable amount longer, needing to take extra space, lots of gentle words, and the occasional offering of treats to reinforce a positive experience. There wasn’t a single horse who I couldn’t work with using the flash, despite a few nervous types.

I had a wonderful time working with so many different personalities, finding poses that worked for each individual that showed them off at their very best, and getting to know each and every one of them - I’ll admit, one of my favourite things about this job is getting to meet everyone’s horses!

I’m in the process of planning a few more of these over the course of the summer, but will also be running a portrait day just for ex racers at my yard near Shrewsbury on the 21st May (£95 per horse, to include 4 retouched digital files and a 45 minute portrait session) - if you’re interested in bringing your ex racer to that, please do get in touch to book on!

And if you’d like to have an equine portrait day at your yard, then I’d love to hear from you! Fill out the contact form here and we can start planning!