Equine Photography with Ella

We were impressed when we received Ella’s entry to our our Young Sponsored Riders competition last spring, to win a sponsorship with us and some mentoring from Paralympic rider, Natasha Baker MBE. We could see that at just 18 years she was already committed to a career with horses, passionate and ambitious about competing in her chosen field, showjumping. As well as riding and competing, Ella is studying Equine business management at Hartpury college, and she also, impressively (not sure how she fits in eating, home life, or even having time out!) has a breeding programme at home.

So in September last year we headed to the family farm to do Ella’s photoshoot, which was part of her prize as a winner. Ella’s main ride is ‘Artisan’ a Holstein gelding, and in Ella’s words “he’s a bit of a spooky boy”. Clearly a talented horse, he also has that “nervous edge” that so many highly strung horses have, luckily this doesn’t seem to phase Ella in the least!

Just before the shoot, we reccy’d the location, and found a lovely bridge over a small river up the road from the farm, a great spot for some shots, with fields full of cows around it. As we soon discovered, two of Arti’s biggest fears are water, and cows! Having talked through the shoot plan with Ella, we decided to go ahead using this spot – apparently Arti will spook at most things anyway, so we figured we would work around it, and it ended up working fine, with some negotiation with Arti along the way!

We also captured Penny, and Beau, 2 of the other horses Ella rides, and some of Ella’s brood mares with their young foals, colts and filly’s, who came galloping over in their field to say hello when they saw us approaching.

We finished the shoot with Ella daring to wear a bold blue prom dress, which we thought looked stunning with the colour of Arti’s coat and the amazing blue sky we had that evening! For this shot, we needed to hold a big light up in the air and direct it at the horse, so we were completely impressed when Arti didn’t react – he just took the whole thing in his stride.

We think you’re amazing Ella and know this year is going to be exciting for you and Arti!