Meet Twister

This is Rocky

Rocky

Hello again readers. This is one of my black and white photo shoots. The photo above is a common  photo technique and one that has to be one of my favorite types to take with horses, each horse can show such different color and personality in this particular photo. Rocky was a very good candidate because one he was still enough and two his coloring is beautiful to show in black and white, because he is a black and white horse. The second picture is the start of an idea I have seen on pintrest. Basically the idea is instead of taking pictures of the whole horse take pictures of areas of the horse and put them beside each other, but for now we will just say its a working progress. the last pictures you will get to meet Breeze my sisters new horse, and for an even newer arrival is her baby filly named Twister! 

Thanks for reading

This is my sister and her new horse Breeze

This is Twister trying to figure out what a camera is

Don and Pat

Meet Don and Pat! 

These are the big Percheron horses a big part of my winter was getting to work with these boys. I absolutely love them. This time I got to take pictures while they were doing a hay ride. They are pretty big, there hoofs are the size of a diner plate! 

These pictures were taken near the end of winter, thankfully its spring now, a really nice spring compared to last year. We have now since then put on wheels instead of sleighs on  the wagon so its easier for Don and Pat to pull.  They pull about 20 - 25 people in a wagon at a time and they weigh, each over 2000 pounds. They sound big but the more I get to work with them the more comfortable I feel around them and then when I work with any other animals they all seem like mice size in comparison.

Take the time it takes so it takes less time. -Unknown

This quote is a great theme for working with horses, especially these boys. basically meaning if you take the time you need in the beginning to work with them, you wont have to fix something later that you didn't do in the first place. 


Photography tip: combine your passions.  If you love photography, its only natural to enjoy taking pictures of what other things you enjoy. don't take pictures of city buildings if you like the flowers of nature.  or vice versa. 


Thanks for taking the time to read and look at my photos! 

Breeze

Hello! hope you guys have had a great start to the new year! on my break I went out to visit my sister, and she showed me some of her new horses. She is in the picture with her new horse Breeze. The picure above shows one of the 3 photography rules or lines. #1 Rule of thirds #2 Spiral and #3 Golden triangle. I have talked about the Rule of thirds before so this time I will talk about The Golden Triangle. Naturally some pictures are more appealing than other pictures than others, most people would say its color and content, which is true but it is also about where you place your subjects in your photos. the 3 lined rules are 3 main designs that the human brain is attracted to. the first picture uses the horses neck to bring you across the picture and the positioning of where Tasha is standing brings your to her face. and Breezes nose makes the other triangle for the other 90 degrees, and its not going to be exactly 90 degrees or a perfect closed triangle its being close that counts. one of the only things I don't like about this picture is the distracting other horse behind her nose.
  Her horses being failrly young had a great curiosity of what I was doing and it was very exciting and challenging at the same time to get a  picture. first of all because they would stand so close to you and there is only some many nose pictures you can get before they fog the camera with there breath. It very quickly gives you an opportunity to take a picture of their eyes and I think I succeeded in getting her curious glossy eyes. also you will notice the last picture you can see the horses breath. I like the Idea of that picture more than anything. although I deerly wish I could improve it. If I could I would walk towards the right creating a more full body horse because I think from the angle I took it she looks more tubby than what I would like. and get my self lower to the ground to get better framing with less snow, and maybe try and place the sun behind the horses back to create for a more shiny glow. but if you are to know one thing about horses you have to be patient because they always will continue to move.

Head Heart Hooves

My sister invited me to come with her to Horse 3. Its an event were all horse lovers meet to watch trainers and learn new things about horses. 

This is Steve he was one of the three trainers, training a 2 year old filly from only halter to saddle broke. (with some some stuff still yet to work on after) They only had 4 one hour sessions to train before the riding test. Steve was successful.

(He is on his own horse at the moment, she is a is a pretty palomino named Shiner.)

Steve was the winner of the contest, and he was also very funny and enjoyable to watch. 

I learned many new things about horses, And new photography techniques with horses.




In the round pen It was hard to get pictures because there is bars to keep the horse inside. Having those bars meant I would have to stand by the round pen to get my pictures, which was very tricky, because the horses were so young and easily distracted my click of the picture would get them off focus. but they got used to the sound eventually because I was not the only photographer there. 

And lets just say I am thankful for zoom lenses! I would not of been able to take good pictures without it!.

Photography tip: Change your shutter speed to faster so you can get clearer shots of the horses because of there fast movement.

Thanks for reading! Love to hear what you think.

Beautiful Mare

This is a photo I took earlier this year, (before the snow) when I was out visiting my sister. Its one of her neighbors horses. Its a beautiful mare and pregnant! Personally I love the look of white flea bitten horses. Again I love the natural look of her, she has no halter or bridal on her face no saddle, and just a pure nature filled background. I LOVE THE COUNTRY!

I want to draw your attention to the color of the sky, it matches closely to the color of the horse many photographers would disagree with the technique I used because generally your not supposed to match up the colors because it usually draws your eyes away from the subject, but I think in this case it suits it well. 
The color of the sky is also darker than the bright blue everyone thinks of. Its white is because it was a cloud covered day, which is perfect photographer weather for the daytime. The reason being is if your shooting when the sun is out on a bright sunny day that will create shadows on your subject. A perfect day with a light cloud cover will make for a photo to have enough light for your photograph but not create distracting shadows.

thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment or suggestions, I would love to hear from you! 

Two passions

I went to visit my sister for almost a week. Her name is Tasha and she is the caretaker of these beautiful horses, she is very talented with working with them. I very much enjoy visiting and riding together. 

 

 Taking pictures of horses is one of my favorite things to take pictures of. horses structure is very different than people and other animals, so its hard to get all their unique quality's in the picture. It was early in the morning and we went out to get the horses to bring them in and they were drawn to the suns light for warmth. (it might look warm outside but it was actually pretty cold).

For the first two pictures I placed the sun behind the horses body so that the sun would shine around the figure of the horse, to make it look like a glowing effect. The pictures look like a silhouette but not as dark, and I like this better because you can see the details of the shining leaves. 

 

The Third picture I love love the sun rays, I only wish that they were more prominent, that will be something that I will have to research more. I also love how natural the photo is, often times when taking pictures with horses you get there halters, bridals and all there gear in the picture. In these photos my intentions were to take the photos natural. 

Please tell me what you think! suggestions? thanks!