After Christmas, much of the UK was hit by the chill of Northerly winds and with it, frosty mornings and sporadic flurries of snow.
On the 28th December I photographed Rosie and her gorgeous horse Jive on one such crisp morning. I have done a number of shoots with Rosie and her beautiful horses over the past few years, but this was the first to take place in the winter.
On the 30th December, the snow came, although not for all of us! At this point, I had 10 people on my snow list who were wanting images of this style, however unfortunately none of them had the showers which had been forecast. I was due to photograph Zara and Leggy on the 9th January, but we both decided it would be lovely to bring the shoot forward and make the most of the beautiful winter wonderland. I had seen videos of Zara and Leggy before as they do beautiful dressage together, however until I arrived I hadn’t quite anticipated how big Leggy is! “17.3hh of gorgeousness” is how I described him in my post when I shared a preview image and I feel it is the best way to do so, very much a Big Friendly giant! We started with in hand shots, as I usually do, followed by a couple of still ridden images and finally the “Wild and wonderful” style which you can see above.
The following morning (31st December) was an early start to get to a frost shoot. I set off in the dark and as soon as I turned on the headlights realised just how heavy the frost was, as the ground was covered in glitter. On the way to this photo shoot, I drove through areas of snow (the car temperature reached -3 degrees Celsius) and as I got nearer to the yard was pleased to see the vastness of the frost as the sun rose.
That same afternoon, the sun shone and I concluded photo shoots for 2020 with a very special session with Sam and Annabel. Sam is a gorgeous jet black advanced Medium dressage horse, who held such a presence in front of the camera which was a pleasure to capture. Thanks to the wonderful lighting, a warm haze gave a beautiful soft finish to the images.
On the 2nd January, the 2021 photo shoots commenced with Meg and Wilf on a “frost” shoot. I put frost in quotes, as although that is what was planned, Mother Nature gave us something even better. Snow!
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