We know you all dream about summer shoots with your partners, equine, canine or human – perfect sunsets, in long grass or on the beach. But have you ever considered doing a session at the opposite time of the year – we love winter equine photoshoots!
We have so many stunning, beautiful, clear winter days with different and beautiful light conditions, shooting at this time of year offers some real advantages over summer.
1.Time of Day
In June & July, sunset is after 9 pm in the UK, then in August it’s between 8 and 9pm. This means that to shoot in the golden hour, when we have the most beautiful diffused light, we need to wait until around 7-8 pm to start a shoot, and often finish at around 9 pm or later.
In winter, we can achieve the same beautiful, soft light at 3-4 pm, and bingo, we can all finish early and go home for tea at 4.30pm!
2. Soft Light
Even when the sun is at its highest in winter, between about noon and 2 pm, the sun just isn’t as harsh as in the summer. This means that shooting any time of day works well, the shadows are softer and more forgiving, so we can be more flexible about when we shoots.
3. Winter Textures
Winter offers so many beautiful and varied clothing textures and colours to match the season here in the UK for our ‘models’ – from leather, and suede to tweed and wool. We always give our clients advice on clothing before their shoot; in winter we suggest layers with soft wool jumpers or tops complemented with jackets, scarves and hats.
4. Soft Colours
Winter colours are softer and more muted unlike the rich greens of summer trees and grass, offering some beautiful opportunities for images.
5. No flies!
In summer, with horses, managing flies can become a real problem and constantly irritate horses, especially if we want to shoot anywhere near water. In winter, no problem and a happy horse!
6. Magical backlighting and breath
On a fresh winter morning, there’s nothing like seeing the magical image of a horse breathing against some soft backlighting from the sun.
We also often have rolling mist or fog, to create a beautiful ethereal look on winter mornings.
7. Frost and snow
Granted, it doesn’t happen every year here in the UK, but we when we do get snow, it creates a magical setting for a horse, or horse and owner photography. Ice and frost can also make for a beautiful winter scene!
We photograph all year round, if you’re interested in booking one of our winter or early spring equine photoshoots we have a few spaces left, you can contact us here, we’d love to hear from you and talk ideas!
If you’d like to find out a bit more, have a look at our portfolio, or our information page for more about how we work.