Piaffe’s and Pirouette’s
I hope you’re ready, as I’m rather excited to be sharing this photoshoot with you…
Earlier in the year, I got contacted by Charlotte, a student at the English National Ballet School who is also a showjumper. Despite not having a horse with her at the time, she was keen to try a shoot that mixed her two passions, ballet and horse riding. This is where Arnie came in. Arnie is my 8-year-old Irish Sports Horse, who scrubs up rather nicely (if I do say so myself), and isn’t worried about too much, so I thought he’d be the perfect fit. And if that didn’t work, there was the potential to use another pony I ride who would be absolutely fine with the tutus and ballet. Combined with the fact a shoot like this has been on my bucket list forever, it’s safe to say I got VERY excited about the upcoming shoot.
There was just one missing piece to this shoot, and that was a second shooter. I knew that I would need someone to help move and position Arnie, Charlotte would also need help with costume changes (potentially), and having someone to grab Arnie’s attention would be incredibly useful. I also knew that I had another photographer friend, Charlotte Colley (to prevent confusion, I will refer to her as CC in this post) who also had this on her bucket list, and we had talked about it in depth. So it made sense that I got her involved as well.
The day of the shoot came, and the first thing to do was get my grey horse clean. Luckily, I had taken him to a show the day before so it didn’t take much to spruce him up. Thank goodness otherwise it would have been a VERY early start. Then when Charlotte and CC arrived we finalised details such as which costumes/outfits Charlotte had brought with her, and where the best possible locations around the yard were to have the photographs. From here we let Arnie get used to the tutus, which he was definitely not expecting but he soon accepted them. We then went onto the first location.
The first tutu was a simple, yet effective, black number. I’m very lucky that my local hacking route is very pretty in places, most of which are within easy walking distance of the yard. For this one, we stayed on the lane and used some blossom to create a bit of a frame, and the lane itself to create a leading line to really draw viewers’ eyes to Arnie and Charlotte.
We then went for a quick stop back at the yard and Charlotte got changed into my favourite of all of her tutus. This gorgeous blue and purple number was so vibrant and had so many intricate details to it. So much so that when CC and I saw it we both got very excited. For this one, we decided to go into the woods where the bridlepath lies. The greens mixed with the deep blue and purple were stunning. It was at this part of the shoot where I was relieved that I had got CC on board, as it was here that we discovered that Arnie would only stand still if I was the one positioning and holding him… This resulted in CC actually taking these images, and I being the one to position Arnie. So there were a number of images that required taking me out of them, post-production! We didn’t let this stop us, and both CC and I are thrilled with the final images!
Another quick change and back to the woods. The tutu that Charlotte wore for this was a stunning cream number, with intricate beading along the bodice. It was much “floatier” than the other tutus so created a really whimsical, ethereal feel to the shoot. Arnie was a bit more relaxed here (we’d started bringing the feed out to bribe him at this point), so we had both cameras in action for parts of this!
The final tutu was a white number that added to the whimsical feel of the shoot. Here we stayed at the yard in order to add more variation to the selection of images we created. Once again I did most of the handling for this part, and CC took control of the cameras. It was at this point we also trusted Arnie to have a little more freedom (only just, I was still on hand to quickly grab him) and he got to interact more naturally with Charlotte, without me holding on. Safe to say, he did not disappoint!
All three of us were thrilled with the final images and it was fantastic to be given a creative project, that CC and I could really sink our teeth into. When this happens you never quite know what the result will be but you can guarantee that the results are amazing. There may even be talks of another, similar shoot happening so watch this space!
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