While I haven’t spent a lot of time around horses, I’ve ridden a few, petted a few, and certainly photographed my fair share when possible. And I’ve always enjoyed watching them play…and eat. Which they mostly do when they’re not playing. So when Kaelyn’s mom called me and asked me to do her senior portraits plus two horses, I was thrilled! I had visions of swishing tails and flying manes and pretty sunset light to bring it all together. And that’s what I got. Plus gracious plenty horseflies and some very swampy about to pour down rain southern kind of heat. What I didn’t realize until I was knee deep in was that a session with a girl and two horses is really like a session with three people! Looking through the photos after the fact, I saw it even more clearly – there were some where the horses were engaging with Kaelyn but eyeing me suspiciously. There were some where Kaelyn (who ohbytheway looks a little like Nicole Kidman, dontcha think?) looked great but the horses were clearly not cooperating, not behaving, or not smiling. And then there were some where I captured those real and true moments between animal and girl..where it was so apparent that these horses knew her, trusted her and loved her. And moments like that, well, they’re worth every cranky horse, bug bitten, humid minute it took to get there.
: )
