I seem to have spent much of the past week out standing in the field, or, to be more accurate, out standing in various fields, as well as ringside at horse shows. I’ve logged a lot of hours and quite a few hundred photos, but it’s nice to be getting caught up after all the cancelled shoots and shows of earlier in the season.
I’ve been making good use of my monopod and now feel quite comfortable handling it. I’ve also started to learn when it is a help and when it can be a hindrance, depending on the type of shots I’m working on. It’s great for horse show shots, especially “over fences” ones, where you know where the horse is going to be heading and can be set up for the action. Less good for fast and erratic action shots which require instant responses and quick reactions to get the shot. For those situations (as I learned the hard way), hand-held is still best. Added uses of the monopod include using it as a leaning pole to prop myself up while waiting for things to happen when there is no seating available, and as an aid in fending off overly curious and pushy young horses (which most of them tend to be). All in all, a very useful bit of equipment to have.
Shot one shows part of the herd of Gypsy cob mare and foals from the shoot I did at North Fork Stables last week. We had a lovely morning for our shoot, with none of the deep mud that plagued my last visit there a couple of weeks ago. There didn’t even seem to be any mosquitoes or other insect pests to inhibit the sheer pleasure of being out with my camera in the midst of a whole herd of mares and foals. I continue to be fascinated with this breed, in a visual sense for their extravagant movement, colour, and “big hair”, and as a horse person for the opportunity to observe their interactions and special personalities, which are in many ways quite different from other breeds with which I am familiar.
Shot two is also from the North Fork shoot. Before we moved the herd out to the pasture for their action shots, this mare took the opportunity for a good stretch to work out the kinks she had acquired during her nap. I’ll bet that felt really good!
Another photo shoot took me east of the city to get photos of the Warmbloods owned by a breeder friend. She has a lovely collection of youngsters and a couple of new babies from this year’s foal crop. I always enjoy photo shoots where I have nice backgrounds to work with, and this location provides that in spades, especially this year as the large amounts of moisture we’ve had means that things are still lush and green, with many wildflowers that we only see in a wet year. Normally at this time of year the grass and pasture areas in the country would be pretty brown and crunchy by now. Shot three shows a couple of the two-year-olds having a canter. We were trying to get individual shots of the youngsters by getting them into this turnout one at a time, but these two are best friends and couldn’t be separated. The fellow in the foreground is sporting an “artificial” tail as his real tail had some trauma last year and is very sparse. He needs something to whisk away the insect life that was absolutely voracious the day I was out there, so his owner fashioned this substitute for him until his real tail grows enough to become functional. Looks kind of odd but does the job nicely.
Shot four is from the same location. This shows Cody, the very old gelding (early 30s) who has adopted Galahad, now six weeks old, whose mother died immediately after giving birth. This little guy is healthy and sassy with the devoted attention he receives from his owner (who was doing four hour feeding shifts twenty-four hours a day for the first few weeks, taking time off work to do so) and the steadying influence and company of old Cody, who has a new interest in life now that he has a job to do with his young adoptee. Galahad has another foal to visit with over the fence, and when they both get a little older, no doubt they’ll be having play dates and running together.
Shot five is from the Ebon Stables horse show of the weekend. Strangely for an Ebon three day show, it didn’t rain once, and we were all quite thrilled to note that not only were the rings oddly free of deep mud for the first time this year, but there was actual dust!! Wow. This shot features Shawna and Ben (Ebon’s Baby Grand) making their way around the jumper ring. The trees in the background started showing fall colours in mid-July, which I have found very distressing on a number of levels. Since summer only just got underway here a week ago, I’m not yet ready for fall which is what these bushes look like. I think it more likely, though, that they have been seriously compromised in some way by the several months of extremely wet conditions, and I fear they may be dying. Time, as usual, will tell.
©Copyright 2010 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.
