Happiness

    Pretty much I love my barn, I love the people there, they are amazing and we work really well together, I love teaching itty bitties how to ride and groom, I love seeing a girl who is crying terrified of being on a horse get off beaming because she had so much fun, and most of all I love the horses.
     I worked all day today. I got up at 6:15 and drove an hour to Misty, worked for 8 hours non-stop, then took pictures of our horses, and then drove another hour back home. Why do I drive so far for work you might ask, as gas prices are rising and I have to get up so early? Allow me to enlighten you.
    I love horses. I know I've said that before but being around horses makes me so incredibly content. I don't have to think about anything that is going wrong in my life, they are the perfect distraction for me. We had on little girl today burst into tears before she was even on her horse, just standing next to him, and by the end of her riding time she wanted to come back for summer camp. I don't know what it is but horses have a power over people.  She completely lost her fear because she had so much fun.
      Then in a later group of older girls one fell off. Keep in mind it was not the horse or rider's fault, things just happen. Now this particular horse, Spade, direct reins which means that the rider uses two hands to steer him and when Spade spooked the girl couldn't hold on to her saddle. I was at the opposite end of the arena when this happened and when I looked over at the sound of Spade spooking all I saw was this tiny little girl parallel to the ground without a horse under her. She landed and literally bounced right up again. And there she was up walking around wanting to get back on Spade. She was completely fine. Oh and this was her first time ever riding a horse. She was so happy to be on a horse that even falling off couldn't stop her.
   This is why I do what I do, the joy that it brings is worth every dollar I pay in gas to get there.  Also as I was walking around in the paddock after all the horses been turned out, I was so content. Like nothing that went wrong outside of that paddock could touch me. As I said in a earlier post that I had been lagging a little bit in my work, this is exactly what I needed to get me going again. I have found that thing that is going to kick my project work into high gear.
  Here is another one of the pictures I edited and one that I took today unedited.

Last Polo

     So I just got back from my last Wednesday night polo ever, well at least until I'm back on  breaks next year. Speaking of polo, the national championships for men and women's intercollegiate teams are being held during my April break which is next week. This means that a huge bunch of teams are coming in from around the country, most of them with their strings (usually 2 horses per person, 4 people per team, men's and women's teams) I have no idea how many horses that is but its a lot and we try to fit them all into the barn or trailers in the parking lot. Pretty much the back of the barn is complete chaos. I mean chaos! At any given time there are twenty people back there shouting and trying to get horses ready for the next game, two playing strings (3 horses per playing team so 6 total per chucker), multiple coaches trying to talk strategy before the game and our high school team running around attempting to keep the barn in order. Then in the arena there are 8 horses and people in the ring playing a chucker (7:30 minutes with stoppage for a walk break ie. the horses walk around to cool down and catch their breath and any fouls or injuries) there are four chuckers to a game and if there is a tie the game goes immediately to shootout I believe. As this is happening all of next week I'm hoping to get a lot of pictures, not necessarily of the games them selves but of the chaos in the back. I am gone Monday through Wednesday so I will miss those games but I will get to see the finals and some prelim games.
      Also happening in the near future is the barn I work at getting all of our ponies and horses in for the summer. This is super exciting because it means that I will have many different horses to photograph as well as extended periods of time to take pictures. A lot of my healing series will be done here at Misty.
    I think those are all the updates for now.

Life and Death

    So I went on another college visit today and I think that I am about ready to decide where I want to go for college!! AHHHH crazy!!!
    So on to my project. I am still reading "Chosen by a Horse" and I love it still. Actually scratch that. I just finished it and I bawled my eyes out. The way that Richards was able to convey the loss and love of a horse is amazing. I have worked with three horses that had to be put down.
     Snickers coliced and had to be euthanized, we had sent him to Cornell to see if he could be saved but unfortunately his owner did not want to pay for the surgery bills. This was when I was a camper at Misty Hollow, we lease the horses from April to October and therefore his owner had the final say. For those of you who don't know, colic in a horse is when there is a food blockage or other obstruction in the intestine. Horses are not able to throw up and relieve themselves of the blockage that way so the only thing to do is walk them, the walking helps to move blockage sometimes resulting in passage of the blockage. In extremely bad cases the intestine can twist itself so that even walking does not help. Snickers had a pretty bad case, all riding was canceled that day and our barn staff stayed up the entire night walking him. Unfortunately the next morning he was sent to Cornell and didn't come back. I had been riding him the day before and was really sad to see him go, he was a spirited little horse.
     Then there was Zoe. She was the oldest most decrepit mare in our barn. She had a limp when she walked and we fed her so much food to keep weight on. Zoe was narcoleptic, which means that she falls over when she falls asleep. To be sure that this wouldn't happen we had to watch her constantly while she was being ridden. Sometime during her journey back home she must have had a narcoleptic episode because when her owner had gotten home and opened the trailer she was down. Unfortunately she didn't get up and they presumed her dead and therefore left her in the trailer overnight until a grave could be dug. When her owner went out the next morning she was standing up eating hay that was left in the trailer. Her owner then decided to let her live out the summer at pasture and then would put her down before winter
    Baby was a polo horse that I just met last year. She was so inquisitive and full of life. She had a tick in which she would always play with her bit and flap her lips together. She got an infection in her eye and had to get medication. She went blind in one eye and was moved to a different barn to live out her life. Unfortunately she then went blind in both eyes and had to be put down. A horse can live blind in one eye, we have one at my barn, but being blind in both eyes is a death sentence.
      It sucks to see all these gorgeous horses put down before it was their time to go but  its nice to know that they didn't have to suffer anymore than was necessary.

YAY!! iLife '11

       YAY!!!!!!!! My Dad just came home with the new iLife '11. I am so happy right now! This means that I can start putting my portfolio together. Thanks Dad!
        One of the big things I was concerned with is that I would leave all of actual planning of the portfolio til the end of the year. Now I can get a rough idea of how I want it. Also this will allow me to make changes through out the semester.

Here is my picture of the week:
Well, I think I have two; here is the first.
    I really like that only the outline of this horse is visible. Some of its muscles are visible but the majority of the horse is left dark. Even though most of the horse is dark I'm still able to make out the shape of this horse. I think this picture really brings out the grace and beauty of the shape of a horse.

       Unfortunately I have not been able to find my other picture. I don't know if it got deleted or what but I will continue looking for it and if I find it I will post it immediately!

So over the weekend I have been exploring the new iPhoto that was updated by iLife '11. It is really nice. Now with the older version of iPhoto the ability to make a book was there but choices were limited. Now there are about 20 themes to choose from and each page can be formatted to fit 1 - 4 pictures on it. I have narrowed the themes down to two so hopefully I will choose one soon so that I can start putting all my pictures in.

    This week I hope to finalize the theme for my portfolio, as well as insert the pictures. There is also polo on Wednesday so I think I will end up photographing instead of riding like usual. I also want to get started on my collage project as I have yet to start that. I really don't want to leave that till the last minute because with how I'm envisioning it, it will be a huge project.

Weekly Plan

     So my plan for this week is to finish going through all my pictures and figure out which ones I want to use. As I said earlier I have 44 that I like so far but I still have the rest of the year for more pictures so I need to see if I can trim those down into a more reasonable number. Once I have trimmed down the number of photos I would like to get started on my portfolio / iLife book. I don't want to leave everything till the last minute in June so I would like to start soon; however the starting of it requires iLife '11 and for that I have to talk to my parents. In the mean time I can start learning how to use Lightroom which is a new program my Dad got for me and continue to edit and take photos.
    My Mom got me a book at Borders,  :( they're closing, tonight and it was amazing, to say the least. It is a memoir about how Susan Richards overcame her alcoholism with the love of her animals and especially a Morgan mare.  Richards was brutally honest about her addiction, childhood and the reasons behind her drinking as well as her relationship with Georgia, a spirited mare who was full of heart and very self-assured. What truly struck me about this book was how Richards described her relationship with Georgia. She did not paint Georgia as the perfect horse who knew just what to do and listened to her every command, instead Richards painted a picture of a horse that was perfectly imperfect. One who did not feel the need to change her ways for any human. Some would call Georgia stubborn and bratty but Richards saw a beautiful soul who was confident and knew what she wanted from those around her. The way Georgia is described by Richards shows the love and understanding between the two. Richards was able to put into words what every true horse person struggles with. We understand what each other mean but we can never express it quite right to a non-horse person so that they get our obsession. Richards says it just right and for that I give her tremendous credit.

Progress!!

     So I have been very productive this week :D.  I went over to a friend's barn on Thursday and took pictures of her jumping and doing some flat work. Thank you sooo much Nicole!!!!!! I absolutely love some of the pictures I got and have already started to edit some of them. Polo co-ed regionals are also on this weekend so I have been at the barn taking tons of pictures, I hope they turn out well! Congrats to Cedar Valley for winning regionals! Good luck at nationals!


Here are some of my favorite pictures from break. I have a total of 44 photos that I like a lot so far. I haven't looked at the ones from today yet. These are the ones that will definitely be going into my portfolio.

  














The picture above is probably my favorite picture I have taken to date. I love the contrast and the movement in this picture.
     I like the picture on the left as well because the sense of movement is there as well as the action of polo.

This was taken at a friend's barn. She was jumping in a lesson and invited me to come up an photograph it. I like the different angle this was taken at.








This is Blondie. She was recently bought and is just starting to get the hang of jumping. She has the cutest little face that is so expressive. She definitely jumps her heart out.

This is Chris, he plays on the open Cornell Interscholastic team. I like this one because it shows how open the arena is and it shows a good bump.

I really like this picture because it shows all three pairs coming at the camera. This is exactly what I love about polo.

I just love this shot because I think it really shows how flexible and agile polo horses are. I also think that there is a certain grace about polo ponies that really comes through in this photo.











I love the bunching of muscle on this horse. I think it shows the strength of horses really well.










So, there it is. I will have more to put up soon. Please leave comments on your opinions.

No "Cliche" Photos For Me!

   I was reading an article the other day and it was about cliche horse photos. It include a list of five most common set ups for horse photos. So in response I give you my list of cliche horse photos. I agreed with the ones from the article so I am including some of them.

  1.   The silhouette of a horse in the sunset.
  
Yeah its pretty and all but we've all seen this picture before and I think that it has stopped being a meaningful picture because we have seen it before. There is no novelty of this picture. Everyone is doing it, there is no more excitement I get from this picture. Its like a postcard picture. Gorgeous picture but nothing more.

2.  A close up of a horse's eye.

    Once again I think this is gorgeous but once again it is used and taken soo often now that it has ceased to mean anything. I am guilty of doing this myself. At the time I felt super cool because I was taking these amazing pictures and the idea was original but then you Google "horse eye close ups" and you get millions of photos. It just goes to show that good ideas quickly become popular and then are no longer "ground breaking."

    3.    Mare and foal photos in which the foal is hiding/doing something that is undeniably cute.

      Thats all it is though. Cute. Nothing more nothing less. And thats not a bad thing, however I am looking to produce photos that have meaning beneath them and make the viewer feel something, anything at all. Whether it be anger, sadness or joy, the fact that my photo makes someone react is an accomplishment. I hope that my photos elicit some sort of reaction and if they don't then I will need to figure out if they are meaningful to me. If they are then great I won't change them but if they don't then I will need to figure out a way to take more meaningful photos.

4.  A girl and her horse.

    Now I think that these can be beautifully done and some are very unique; but, I feel that the majority of these photos are the same thing over and over again. Personally I think that these pictures can say a lot and appeal to many people; however, I think that they are too widely produced which makes them mean less.

5. And the last one. A horse running through the ocean.

Like number 4 I believe that a horse running on the beach can be done well and effectively but the generic shot of the horse running parallel to the camera with mane and tail flowing bores me. If this picture had a more interesting angle, different color choices and was cropped I think it would be elevated to another level, rather than just a pretty picture.




So what do you think? Are there some obvious cliche horse pictures I left out? Do you disagree with any of the ones I have on my list? 

My Two Week Plan

So I have to come up with this plan for what I am hoping to accomplish in the next two weeks. I set the expectaion that I would figure out the outline for my projects by the end of February so I need to start figuring out each of my pieces and start planning specifically when I need to have pictures shot by. I am going to publish a portfolio as one of my pieces, another one is going to be a collage of pictures of horse parts and I am going to mesh them into one photo of a horse. So I might have the legs of a dressage horse under the body of a polo pony, with the head of a jumper and so on. I think this is the piece I am most excited for. As of right now I am also planning to create a PowerPoint or a slideshow, which would show the progression of chaos between dressage, show jumping and indoor polo.
By the end of these two weeks I hope I have extensively planned out my collage of horses and have started shooting for it. I am going to a polo game tonight so hopefully *Crossing My Fingers* I won't have to work during the games and I can take pictures instead. I will be using my Nikon D3100, this will be my first time using the camera for polo so it will be interesting to see how it goes. If you haven't been to a polo game I suggest you go immediately! It is soo much fun.
TTYL

Well here it is: My First Post

So here it is. I am starting this blog as a journal for my WISE project. I decided to do equine photography because I love horses and photography. I have been riding western for 8 years and just started polo this winter which I have fallen in love with. I took photography courses last year and loved it, so I decided to combine two things that I love. I am planning to create three pieces total with one being a book or portfolio of all the pictures I have taken over the semester.