“Wow ; we are simply in awe of the images Jo and Nic managed to capture of our family, human and equine, during the photo shoot. Jo and Nic are a delight to work with, they were both unbelievably patient during the ‘costume changes’ during our shoot, and perhaps most importantly for us, they have a real empathy with horses and managed to capture each of the ponies characters. We are so pleased with the results that Jo and Nic’s very long road trip to us from Bristol is likely to become an annual occurrence…”
Last spring we had a call out of the blue from Howard, who had seen some of our work on social media. Would you be willing to travel to Kent to photograph our 3 girls with our horses and dogs?, he asked. It took all of about 3 seconds to say yes! Travel has never stopped us from doing a shoot yet, indeed we like the way new locations present fresh backgrounds & opportunities to keep us out of our comfort zone! A July date was booked, accommodation was arranged, and we started the planning the shoot with Howard, and his wife, Kristina.
Kristina told me a bit more about their 3 girls – 13 year old Honor, who is passionate about horses and competes regularly; 10 year old Laragh, who loves the ponies, but also adores their family dogs Lola and Charlie, and finally Claudia, their youngest at just 8 years, also a keen rider. They had done portrait sessions before as a family, but they had never commissioned an equine specialist, and they very much felt their horses and dogs were a part of the family.
I was nervous about the weather for this shoot – everything had to be booked beforehand and buckets of rain wouldn’t be easy to work with with our list models and plans for the day! So I was hugely relieved when the sun was shining and the forecast great as we hit the road to Kent on the morning of the shoot – whoop whoop – a mix of glorious sunshine was forecast with some soft clouds inbetween! We planned to start the shoot after lunch so travelled up that morning to arrive late morning, allowing time to wander around the location and suss out backdrops, before starting. We also spent 20 minutes with Kristina and the girls going through a huge pile of clothing – always an important subject where women are involved!
We love capturing the personality of our models, human and equine, and I could see each of the girls was very different in nature, something we were keen to bring out in the photos – along with the characters of each of the ponies and dogs, who are such a part of the family.
First up was Honor, who we could see adores Toffee, their eldest pony, and her first ride. We also photographed Honor with Spring, a their 12.2 grey jumping pony, and Breeze, 14.2 grey Connemara pony whom Honor competes regularly.
Next up was Laragh! As well as with the ponies, we wanted to photograph her with the two dogs – Lola, golden labrador, and Charlie, the family terrier – we could see she just adores the dogs!
Last up was Claudia, who was a chatty and adorably cute little personality to photograph with the family’s smallest pony, a mare called ‘Honeybee’. She had a lovely, fun connection with Honeybee, and one of my favourite shots of her is her walking through the long grass, literally chatting to the pony!
We also wanted capture some shots of the whole family, dogs, horses, everyone. Not an easy task with so many models for this shot – so we settled on doing one shot earlier on in the day, and one later on in the evening, with a clothing change for the second one, and the addition of the dogs! This worked a treat – the mood of the day changed with the light so the two shots were both lovely, but different.
Finally, we wanted to create some ‘artpieces’ using our location lights. For this kind of shot, we need the right conditions – some clouds and detail and colour in the sky, and ideally, evening. We were chuffed when all the timings came together and the weather played ball – we started with Laragh, plus a shot of the three girls with two of the ponies, and some of their musical instruments! Finally as we had time, we did a few of Honor, in a gorgeous red dress with Breeze and then in a black dress, on Toffee.
This was the perfect finish to a day shoot! We finished at dusk around 8.30pm, packed the kit and guess what – headed to the pub for some well needed refreshment!
