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Portfolio Shoot #2

Bridget Ford
Sep 1, 2017
2 min read

Family and Horses Beach Photo Shoot

For my second portfolio shoot I enlisted the help of most of the Struben family. Sarah, Josephine, Simon and their two horses Celeb and Maggie. Celeb is the "granny"of the two horses and Maggie is the rambunctious youngster, still learning about everything from "grannyceleb." I didn't necessarily intend for this to end up being a family type shoot, but it couldn't have worked out any better than it did! Both horses are incredibly photogenic and so are the two sisters Jo and Sarah. Simon and his beloved Maggie provided me with many incredibly sweet and candid moments throughout the shoot.

I was shooting early am on a saturday morning at Noordhoeks horse friendly part of the beach with the ideal soft and dusk type lighting. To my delight, Sarah was able to ride beautiful Celeb around with nothing but a strap around her neck, providing me with some pure horsemanship shots that I hadn't even anticipated. Celeb further provided some entertainment when Sarah trustingly released the strap whilst standing next to her, for a completely free shot of Celeb, and Celeb took off into the sand dunes playfully ignoring her moms calls. Once she noticed her friend Maggie wasn't with her she happily came back to the scene of the action.

At this time on a saturday the beach was incredibly quiet and was ideal in enabling me to capture many exquisite moments between both horses and all three people. At the very end of the shoot, both horses finally got what they'd wanted the entire time, a good roll in the soft sand of the beach, again providing me with some beautiful shots for my portfolio book. This Shoot also provided me with my best Image of horse and rider to date. This photograph, along with some others are being used in my portfolio book. This was actually also my second shoot using my new Canon Mark ll and my 70-200mm 2.8 lens and I learnt so much and thoroughly enjoyed my new equipment!

This is an experience that any horse rider and Equine photographer wants to have and I am so grateful I got the opportunity to photograph such a close knit family and their beloved horses. Thank you to all three of you and Maggie and Celeb for providing much entertainment and some stunning shots for my portfolio. :)