Blog Posts in Category: Sports

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…

This weekend I headed up to Herefordshire with David for the North Herefordshire Hunt’s Opening Meet. Hunting is something that I want to photograph more often but finding time is always very difficult and I live a long way away from Herefordshire which is where I used to hunt so know the countryside well and the people who hunt there so it’s ideal for going and taking photos as hunts are very suspicious of new people turning up with cameras. It is only the second time I have attempted to take photos of Hunting and last time was in an area of countryside I was not familiar with so spent most of the day driving around completely lost, but this time as I knew the countryside very well we spent the whole day on foot with a good idea of where the hunt was going to go next. This proved to be very tiring as we covered around 7 miles over hilly terrain while carrying heavy camera gear and quite a lot of the distance was done at a sprint to get ahead of the hunt for the jumps. Towards the start of the. Read the full article…

Recently I headed down to Pontispool Horse Trials to see my sister, Katherine Begley, eventing due to the wind delaying my other plans for the week. To say it was breezy would be an understatement with the remains of Hurricane Katia hitting the UK. Other than the wind it was a pleasant day without any rain and even some sunny spells. It will unfortunately now probably be my last event of the season due to heading back to university and the season coming to a close anyway. Due to the wind my sisters horse, George, was looking fairly wild before the dressage and this was unfortunately reflected in the test, though the mark given could have been worse as the score given was 41. A quick tack change and it was on to the show jumping where it was so windy that the planks had to be held on in the arena until the rider had jumped the previous fence and Katherine is still getting to know her new horse and had 3 down. It was then on to the final phase, the cross country which is my favourite phase so I went off to the furthest side. Read the full article…

Today I headed up to Cheshire to take pictures of my sister, Katherine Begley, competing at Somerford Park. She was competing at Intermediate level and this was her first intermediate since getting her new horse, Gorgeous George IV. I have been to many events but few that ran as quickly as this one, once the dressage had been completed early it was straight onto the show jumping and then after that straight onto the cross country. It was lucky I had my lunch early before the dressage! I really struggled with the sun today as it was very harsh and I was not able to get into the positions I would have liked to cope with the harsh sunlight so there were some interesting shadows to deal with (typical Brit, complain when the sun isn’t out, complain when it is!). I have also decided that George is a difficult colour to photograph as I have now taken pictures of him twice and both time found it very hard to edit the photos, something I have never encountered before with other horses. The dressage went very well despite George sticking his tongue out for a. Read the full article…