Meet Carol and her two ponies, Betty and Daisy! Carol contacted me a few months ago to arrange for me to head over to their beautiful rented yard on the grounds of a stunning Cotswold Manor House!
I was looking forward to it - and the location definately did not disapoint! Carol has owned native ponies for many years but her two current ponies are New Forest ponies - in fact, they're mother and Daughter! My lovely friend Angeline was roped in to joining me for the day; armed with plenty of sweets for the journey we headed over to meet everyone!
Bob met us on the drive way and directed us up towards the yard. I wish I'd taken some photographs of the grounds for you all to see, they were so picturesque. Like something from an old movie, imagine old fashioned hunting stables with the cobble floors, stalls and boxes all in a dark, oiled wood. We were then showed around the gardens, including a lovely mown lawn, an arboretum with plenty of lovely sculptures!
The ponies, we were warned were very sharp as they had been involved in drifts as they came off the forest. More of the Best (Betty) and Maytree Fantasia (Daisy) are very well known within the showing community, Carol told us that Betty has won two of the major New Forest breed trophies along with being Rev Champion Forest Bred at the New Forest County Show!
Carol and Bob are very proud of their ponies and when they found out that Daisy was up for sale and had many of her mothers prize winning qualities, they knew that they just had to have her!
The main focus of the shoot was on the ponies - Carol wanted photographs of Betty with her seasons winnings, focusing on the most prestigious of them. She was initially a bit unsure of the sash being placed around her neck but soon overcame that. Angie was working tirelessly to make sure the ponies kept looking at us - Carol commented that perhaps I should be offering the job as assistant to someone who wants to have lots of excercise and it would beat going to the gym!
When asked how Carol had found out about me she said it was after a search on Google. She loved the black background style images in particular, which is what we concluded the shoot with. Notably she said my images seemed to be bursting with character and really capture the ponies personality - she had lots of photographs of her ponies in the show ring but she was looking to have a piece of art to proudly display at home on the wall.
Thank you for inviting Angie and I up to Gloucester to meet you all - I really hope you love the images and best of luck for next season!