Zoe & Prince

As you may remember, back in March I ran a competition for fans on my Facebook page to win a photo shoot.

Zoe Hart won with a photo of herself and her horse, Prince, and last month I road tripped with Becky to go and shoot with her. Here are some of the results:

Geneva Lane

At the beginning of this year I was in contact with 2010 Xfactor finalist Geneva Lane. (Was the forth member of Belle Amie on the show)
She'd recently left the group and started working on a solo career when we were in discussions of doing a photo shoot which was scheduled and shot in April working with mua Lucy.

On the first location we moved in to a new home, a little hut made of branches and sticks and joked that to passers by it probably looked as if she'd been attacked by a duck as we were shooting by a lake and she had feathers pinned in her hair.
I have behind the scenes footage which i'm sure will eventually make it's way onto my youtube channel.

Geneva has just released her first single 'Karma' which is currently #8 on the urban club chart and you can listen to by clicking the song title.

I can't release any photos yet but here's some behind the scenes shots for now.

Yorkshire 2011

If you follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr you'll know I went to Yorkshire for two weeks last month and that my trip up north is gradually becoming an annual visit to see my friends and indulge in horsey photo projects.

Myself and Becky decided that this year we weren't going to plan anything specific, Shadow was still recovering from an injury and therefore we figured spontaneity was our best option. Seen as we both share the same philosophy when working with horses and will never ask something of them that is impractical, forceful or discomforts them the choice to just see what she was capable of and happy to do at the time was the best option.

The focus of my photos on this visit were largely geared more towards documenting training sessions and Shadows ability to listen and respond to instruction as opposed to last year where I used her more as a model playing out a character that I wanted for photos.

For the images below Becky was working on teaching Shadow to bring her head in (which you can see in the middle image) whilst our friend assisted in draping material over her. Again we wouldn't have done this if we didn't think Shadow would be comfortable with it but she is a very relaxed mare and barely acknowledged it being on her and rather focused on her training.

Having a different perspective this year was interesting, as although I saw the horse for who she is last year, my visit in 2011 really highlighted the close bond between Shadow and Becky. I saw more emotion and a heart tugging motive that all Shadow wanted to do was please her friend, not because if she did it right she was rewarded with food but simply to see the big smile on Becky's face knowing her horse truly understood her.

I have a lot more photos of Shadow and other horses at the farm to work through which will be published online soon.