Shoestring photography workshop

One thing I didn't initially anticipate when I started freelancing is the heavy interlink between my career and my personal life. Now it sounds like an obvious and key point of self employment that I should've anticipated, what with being your own boss, but what i'm more referring to is the extent to which it's started challenging me on a personal and deeply emotional level.

The opportunities and jobs i've had over the last year or so have definitely done my confidence a world of good whilst at the same time bringing to the surface a constant mental battle with anxiety.

Earlier this year Kate Vanhinsbergh, photographer and editor of Shoestring magazine, approached me to host one of several workshops being run by the publication. This being a perfect example of one of the opportunities I just mentioned. It's an awesome proposal and something I think a lot of people would have loved the chance to do and whilst on one hand I was really looking forward to the challenge and getting some public speaking/workshop experience under my belt, the idea and reality of travelling to Manchester and talking to a group of people was scary as hell.

With this in mind I took a lot of time debating with Kate what the workshop should focus on and concluded it would be easiest to focus on my strong points as a photographer, so we decided that 'the editorial' and bringing your vision to life was a good start. The talk focused on different elements of a shoot and how to get what you want from it, making sure that as the person in charge of the overall look, you have the confidence and capabilities to step in with all the creative aspects. This led into the shoot itself giving each workshopee a little one on one time with the model to develop their directing skills to help them get over those pesky nerves that held them back from achieving the shots they wanted.

The irony wasn't lost on me of lecturing a group about the importance of confidence when for the previous six hours i'd been travelling I was a nervous wreck. I think it almost added to the message though as nerves are often unavoidable but so long as you chase your vision and don't let them hold you back then you're going to progress in leaps and bounds.

I received really positive feedback at the end of the day and was glad each person had a good experience with some useful advise they could take away and build on with practise. They were also either amateurs or new to fashion photography so I was really pleased with the shots they got and the way they directed our model considering I put each in the spotlight to direct the shoot for even just a few minutes.

You can find some behind the scenes photos taken by Kate on the
Shoestring facebook page along with her images from the day and here are a few quick examples of what the group shot!

Dave Morrison:

Shay Rowan:

Anitha Narayan:

Melanie Smith:

Huge thank you to Kate and the creative team!

Model: Helen Holt
MUA: Dan Wood
Hair: Ashley Lambe

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:

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.

Do the get around

With summer just around the corner and talk of uni being out for the year within the next month, the little voice in the back of my head is starting to tell me off for not having anything planned during summer, travel wise.

I haven't left Kent for more than a day since June last year, aside from my week trip to Brighton in January. As beautiful as this county is and I do love living here, I definitely have the itch to take myself somewhere else.

I'm organising my trip to Yorkshire which is looking to be between 10th and 24th June in which time I plan on fully indulging myself with horse wonderfulness. I will be available for bookings so if you are in the surrounding area of west yorkshire do get in touch if you're interested in a shoot!

Meanwhile I am aiming to be back in Brighton for a while at some point during this month with something special planned with Lydia Pankhurst so make sure you keep a beady eye on us ;)


I may start listing up where i'll be heading to during summer so far we've got:

• Brighton
• Yorkshire

Where else should I go? There is a very lovely looking horse I know of that is tempting me to pop over to Ireland.....

Day 2

Another +1000 photos later.

I had my main photoshoot yesterday, the one that me and Becky had been planning and organising since september. It was so so cool to see Shadow perform in real life, she's such a beautiful horse. I don't want to give away too much until I get home and edit some of the photos so I can post them. Rachel (B's little sister) modeled the shoot and did a great job with it. I gave her some modelling one on one time with a tree ;)

I'm having a dress made for me by Becky's mum which she started working on yesterday, it's looking amazing already i'm so excited to see it finished and I may possibly do photos in it with Shadow for next months self portrait but we'll see how that works out.


Behind the scenes:
(Thank you Charlotte for the photos)

Yorkshire: Day 1

I would've had this up yesterday but I didn't have internet on my laptop till right now, so we'll have two blog posts this evening ;)
Provided I can be bothered to type up for today.


what an exhausting day!! After about a 4 and a half hours drive I arrived at my friends house, the weather was
incredibley hot up here, being inland they don't get the coastal breeze i'm used to.

I hadn't stopped long to eat lunch and drag my stuff inside that we were off out to bath Shadow (the horse i'll be using in the photoshoot) She is so incredibley pretty and I can't wait to use her. Whilst my friends were washing her I was snapping away and Shadow is working it for me already ;) So so beautiful. I also tried using flash, i've wanted to use try it out on a horse for so long and she wasn't scared of it so I have a good few dramatic shots of her.

We also went to see Charlottes horse Holly, a very pretty and sweet 16.1hh Clydesdale. I much prefer big horses to small nippy ponies, they tend to be so much calmer and have a better temperament....usually! Holly was so adorable though, i'm doing a shoot with her and Charlotte on friday for them, although I already have a lot of photos of the two of them cantering and galloping round. When we turned her out for the night I got to ride her back to her field tackless. I haven't done that in so many years when I brought Chester in from his field when I had him on loan. Although mildly uncomfortable in jeans I loved it so much, Charlotte took some photos of me on her hopefully I can ask her for some and i'll put one up. I've only been back on a horse once in March this year for 2 years and that was with someone leading me round, it felt really natural and normal to be back up there.

Becky has another horse of hers at the same farm as Charlotte so we'd popped over to much her out and see her too. Kara, who is Shadow's daughter, is such a cute little thing. I think she's just over one years old. Such a sweetie and had so much character, she does make me laugh.


The dress we're using in the shoot was made by Beckys mum. I saw it for the first time today and it's incredibley beautiful and fits perfectly with the shoot theme. It's a lovely blue colour and floaty (I love my floaty dresses!!!) Beckys little sister will be modelling it in the shoot and she looks really really good in it.
We're heading down to the fabric store tomorrow to pick up some material to start on my dress! It was very kindly offered to have a dress made for me as i've come all this way and shooting for free. I'm so excited!