We were delighted when Sally got in touch early in 2017 to book an equine photoshoot for her teenage daughter Sophie as a birthday gift. As Sally explained, this was intended as more than just your typical birthday gift : “The photoshoot was a gift of a lifetime of ponies and I wanted to mark Sophie’s passing onto horses, as a ‘moment in time’.”

Sally & Sophie have two ponies and a horse –  ‘Clover’, a 13.3 hh, 21 year old fleabitten grey Connemara mare, whom Sally told us Sophie ‘absolutely adores’; ‘Murraymint’  a 14.3 hh,  20 year old Dunn pony  (whose name is derived from a very cute white spot he has on his bottom!), and finally ‘Dantzig’ (stable name Dani), 16.1 hh 9 year old KWPN gelding.

We were really excited about this shoot. Not only did Sally and Sophie have a lovely yard for us to work in, with open fields, gallop tracks and tall trees as a beautiful natural backdrop. Sally had also gained permission for us to take one of the horses to the stunning – and I mean stunning – grounds of Sophie’s school, Westonbirt. Wow!!! We love doing anything different and individual on our sessions, and were excited about the creativity this location offered. Chatting with Sally beforehard, we also realised that Sophie is a passionate musician and actress, as well as a talented rider, so we opted to take a few props along to Westonbirt – a guitar & a gramophone, combined with a few dresses and some long boots, kindly suppled for the shoot by Fairfax & Favor.

The day of the shoot was a fabulous experience, we spent a couple of hours at the yard and then loaded Dani into the lorry and headed to Westonbirt school for round two. Having been unsettled at the yard, he seemed to adapt to the school surroundings well, and pretty much co-operated with all our requests, which was a relief!

We loved the results of this session. More to the point though, Sally and Sophie also loved their pictures, opting to have them mounted into a stunning leatherbound album, as well as choosing a few to hang on the wall: “We were so pleased with the photos and the album is a coffee table favourite!” said Sally  “But the best thing was the day – those memories will live with us for a long time – all the horses at home and the wonderful setting of Westonbirt for Dani – it was one of the best ‘horsey’ days we have spent together as Mum and daughter and one we will never forget. Then for you guys to use the shot of Sophie and Murray Mint for your Xmas card and for us to use the Dani shot in the Westonbirt cloisters for ours – well that was just the icing on the cake!!!”