Blog Posts in Category: Equestrian

Due to some friends visiting for my birthday I had no plans to head to the mountains, but due to a great forecast I dragged my friends along to Barbury to take some photos of my sister competing. I am still feeling rusty which is frustrating me as I just am not getting the timing quite right which is something I used to be much better at, but practice makes perfect and I am sure I will get there again.The showjumping was challenging as it was a huge arena and the best angle involved shooting into the sun! Due to this I made the best of the situation and did some running and managed to get a few jumps in. Katherine had a great round, and I actually thought she went clear but she had an unfortunate four faults which was a shame. A quick move was made to the cross-country and I discovered that the initial jumps I had been sent to were challenging photography wise due to the sun and position of the tapes on the course, in the end I got the photos by ignoring the tapes. Read the full article…

Due to a combination of having a rare free day at the weekend and Katherine competing at Nunney International Horse trials which is close to Bristol, I headed down to take some photos of her eventing. This is only my second day out eventing this year so I am still feeling fairly rusty and its on days like this I really miss my 5D3, however I am happy with some of the SJ photos given the poor light. When I set off the weather forecast said that the rain was going to hold off until the afternoon, and it did hold off for the Showjumping. It was a great course to take photos from the edge on as a decent angle could be obtained on loads of jumps, it was just a shame about the flat light. Katherine did a great round and managed a clear which she was very pleased with. While she was getting ready for the cross-country spots of rain started to appear, and the weather just went downhill from here with the rain getting heavier and heavier. By the time Katherine was going around the course. Read the full article…

Over the past month I have managed two days of equestrian photography, firstly I headed up to Withington Manor Horse Trials to take photos of Katherine competing. Since I had no SLR last summer it has been around two years since I last did any eventing photography and it felt good to be back. I did feel fairly rusty and need some practice to get the hang of it again but I was fairly pleased with what I managed. The next day I headed down to to Larkhill racecourse to take photos of Katherine doing her first point-to-point on her new pointer, and try my hand at pointing photography for the first time. It was a great weekend and I am sure there will be more equestrian photography over the summer.

The main reason for me getting a SLR again was due to going evening with my sister and realising how much I missed equestrian photography. This weekend I had my first chance since getting my camera to get out and take pictures of people riding and it happened to be in the form of the North Herefordshire Hunt’s Opening Meet for the 2012 season of hunting. The weather in the morning was brilliant blue skies after a night of rain with a bit of a winter chill in the air as well so it was looking like it should be a good day, and despite warming up significantly during the meet it was a very good day out. The stunning weather actually made photography fairly difficult in the morning with the very harsh winter light creating large shadows and very contrasty photos. There was a great turnout at the meet both on  horseback and on foot which was nice to see, after the speech from the hunt staff about how the hunting would be within the law of the hunting act by following a trail which was laid we headed. Read the full article…

It has been two and a half years since I last rode a horse, though I haven’t just abandoned the equestrian world as I have been regularly going out and taking photos of my sister eventing and making money from equestrian photography. However, this weekend I headed up to my grans where the horses are based and on the Saturday decided to go out for a ride. Due to a SJ lesson everyone else was busy, so after 2.5 years I went out for a ride on the rather excitable horse that I used to own. The ride was great fun and surprisingly considering the amount of grey clouds it stayed dry. The next day the North Herefordshire Hunt was running a fun ride which is where you get to ride over farmers land which would normally only be accessible during hunting in the summer for fun. The weather was great as it was warm and the sun was out for a large amount of the ride. I quickly discovered that it is hard to take photos while on horseback due to the movement of the horse but I persevered and even started getting. Read the full article…

This morning to work off some of the Christmas food I headed over to my sister’s place of work, Venetia Williams Racing Yard, to photograph her and some of the other riders out on the gallops exercising the horses. Due to tiredness the night before I didn’t have proper directions so crossed the river wye multiple times while my satnav kept changing its mind on where it wanted me to go (turns out it thought I should be in the middle of the river!) but I did manage to get there in time, though due to it being winter did struggle with the light at 8am as the sun had not risen by this point! It was nice to do another type of equestrian photography, though it would be nice at some point to get to take photos of pointing at an event with jumps rather than just on the flat at training. After two rides out had been completed I departed to the regular boxing day hunt meet in Ledbury town centre where my parents were riding and it was wonderful to see so many people out on horseback and on foot. Read the full article…