Meet Emma, her beautiful mare Jazz and her dog Wilf! Her Mum, Gillian, purchased the shoot for Emma as a gift for Christmas, so it was great to have her on hand to help out during the shoot.
Emma and Jazz enjoy doing a bit of everything together: showjumping, cross country, sponsored rides and taking part in the Team Quest dressage competitions. We met at their yard just outside of Reading for the shoot. The yard backs on to the Reading Festival site which proved quite interesting at times!
After quickly showing me around the farm we headed off to the indoor school to begin the shoot! Emma was really keen to get some black background shots of just Jazz, as well as re-creating some of her favourite photographs that she'd seen on my website.
Emma was also looking forward to me photographing the close up shots of Jazz, focusing on her eyes and the more abstract shots of her bending and the way the light falls on her coat and highlights the definition of her muscle and bone structure.
Next, we moved towards a block of stables with an alley-way stretching between the two rows. The area was decorated with beautiful, vibrant hanging baskets. The bursts of colour really makes the images I think!
As I mentioned before, the fields we were in were shortly going to become campsites for the festival. Jazz was super as she faced lorries bringing in equiptment and portaloos! There was lots of open space for us to use, working through a variety of different poses and set ups. Gillian kept Jazz's attention and we even managed to get Wilf in a few of the shots too!
To ensure Jazz didn't get too bored, we moved in to another field away from the traffic distractions. In here we had her attention and managed to get some really lovely shots capturing the relationship between the pair of them.
Thank you so much to Gillian for organising the shoot and to Emma! It was lovely to meet you all and I hope you're pleased with the images!
