Meet Meghan and her ex-racer, Casper! At the end of a shoot last year with a friend, Meghan's mum enquired about organising a shoot for Meghan and she went ahead and purchased a voucher as a Christmas present!
Initially Meghan had decided to wait until Autumn to have a shoot with her handsome bay thoroughbred, however ther was a little arrival this spring and Meg wanted me to capture some images of him whilst he was still young, so, in addition - meet Maggie and her 3 week old colt, Merlin!
Meghan works and keeps her horses at one of my favourite local yards to photograph at! The locations are endless, with so many different backdrops, I'm always spoilt for choice! We began in the little orchard tucked away behind the yard. Merlin was a little tricky to get his ears forward at the beginning, he seemed to want to face Meghan the whole time, but with a little help from a bucket of nuts and my squeaky purple octopus, he began to settle!
Meghan was wearing her competition gear to begin the shoot - they'd had a sucessful weekend out showjumping. Meghan jumped in at the deep end entering a class bigger than she'd jumped before with Casper but she said he was feeling so well, why not!
Casper, or Clowance Estate when he was racing has been owned by Meghan for just over a year now - but she said with a big smile on her face, that he's here to stay! After a slightly eventful sit on him bareback, Meghan calmed him down, and re-mounted for some bareback shots in the orchard before heading back to the yard for an outfit change in to something more casual.
I'd spotted some big wooden barn doors in a deep brown tint - the idea might have seemed a little strange at first, not being your typical picture-esque location; but the brown hues worked so well against Casper's coat! Meghan's dog, Gizmo was on hand to help get Casper's ears forward: fascinated by the purple squeaky octopus, Gizmo would bring it back every time I threw it in a certain direction, often squeaking it on the way back which definately helped to get Casper's ears forward! It also handily helped me when we were in the buttercup field as I kept loosing the octopus in the grass, but Gizmo always brought it back to me!
Around the edge of the paddocks is a wooded area - we found the perfect log for Meghan and Gizmo to sit on with Casper behind, even if he did think he was being asked to jump the log!
One of Meghan's "must have shots" from the shoot was a black background image of her on Casper, bareback - a shot that our mutual friend Angie had on her shoot. She hopped on him in the school and had a little walk around to settle him - we positioned him in place just in front of the entrance to the indoor school - with a little distraction of a horse being trotted up on the courtyard, he flicked his ears forward and we got the shot that Meghan was after!
Next, it was time for foal cuddles! Maggie, their family horse gave birth to Merlin just under 3 weeks ago - he was a very curious litle chap! Maggie was busy munching her feed from her bucket, but Merlin was far more interested in climbing in the bucket - which wasn't so helpful!
Merlin, once he's old enough will stay in the family for Meghan to ride herself. He was quite lazy during the shoot, even when Maggie was being trotted up and down the field, he didn't really put much effort in to keeping up. We were hoping for some lovely action shots of the two together, but they decided eating and lazing in the sun was much more preferable - I mean, who can blame them?
Thank you so much for having me Meghan!