Meet Chloe and her homebred mare, Lucie. Chloe was lucky enough to be given a two hour shoot voucher for Christmas – now that Spring is here, I headed over to Oxfordshire to meet them both. Stacey, my instructor at a local riding school when I was much younger bought Chloe a photoshoot voucher for Christmas this year. Without even realising, I’d photographed Chloe and Lucie the weekend prior to their shoot at the combined training at Rosehill, organised by Chiltern Riding Club!
I always love driving from Pangbourne, past Blewbury and in to Oxfordshire. The rolling hills dotted with crop fields and at this time of year the vibrant yellow from the rapeseed crop. On the morning of the shoot it had been drizzling on and off, after a quick call from Chloe to confirm she was still happy to go ahead, I made my way to the yard.
I was introduced to Lucie and the shoot began with some black background images.
Chloe said she had all sorts of reservations about breeding her own horse, worrying how they would turn out especially after all of the time and money she had invested in to producing her own horse. However Lucie is wonderful and Chloe appreciates every moment with her and is so proud of Lucie – rightly so! She doesn’t want to push Lucie too much too soon but after a few outings she has continued to grow and grow in to such a lovely horse.
Together they enjoy hacking and generally spending time together. They definitely aren’t short of hacking either! I was so jealous as we explored the beautiful bridleways just opposite the yard, wishing we had even half of what they had at the yard where I keep my pony. There were fields, bridleways and all weather tracks all set on the Ridgeway. The main part of the shoot took place under a beautiful avenue of trees surrounded by fields a few minutes’ walk from the yard.
Chloe hopped on Lucie and I followed them down the avenue of trees that Chloe had been telling me about. I took photographs of them walking away from me then back to me as well as several shots taking in the beautiful surroundings. We managed to carefully place Lucie, without stepping on the crops (following a tractor tyre track just off the main path) amongst the yellow rapeseed flowers.
After dismounting, we stayed on the avenue to take some photographs in hand, again working through various poses whilst we chatted away. We tried to keep Lucie occupied by walking around and allowing her to munch as Chloe had warned me she wasn’t the best at standing still. Although, I thought she was very well behaved and took everything in her stride!
We then took a short walk up the road to see if we could find any flowers – we found a patch of daffodils which framed the shot nicely. After almost 2 hours of photographing, we headed back to the yard for Lucie to have a well-deserved handful of treats and some hay.
It was so lovely to meet you both, I loved photographing the two of you who obviously get on so well together! I hope you love the images and hopefully see you out and about soon at some more events!