Portfolio Week 1

Portfolio 

Week 1


Choosing my Genre and Topic for my Portfolio

On my first week back at course I had no idea what Genre or what type of images I wanted to take, I was slightly leaning more towards Landscape or Church Architecture BUT I wasn't to sure. I ended up having a conversation with Aroha in my class and she mentioned working around topics and genres that I love and also have easy access to. At the time we came up with Landscape and Friends as my Topics, as I live in the country and go out with my friends most weekends. I decided to go out and try get landscape images last Saturday, BUT didn't have much luck with the images and I started to second guess the friends photography as well. So I started thinking of something else I could take images of and realized I have a lot of access to Horses and have taken images of and have lived around them my whole life, so why not take images of them in some way for my portfolio. After choosing Horses, I started thinking of how I could take images of them, and I came up with the concept of Horse and Rider relationship, as a Rider myself I know that the connection between a horse and it's rider is massive, and I want to be able to show that in some way in my images.

Portfolio Artist Inspiration

After deciding on my Portfolio Topic I started looking for Photographers that take images of Horses and Riders for some inspiration and Idea's for my shoot. As I was searching and I came across "Shelley Paulson", who is an American Equestrian Photographer, who mainly specializes in Horse and Rider Photography but also does solo Horse and Rider shoots as well. She started taking images of Horses and Riders Professionally back in 2004 and has since become a really well know equine Photographer both in america and worldwide.

These are some images Shelley's taken with Riders and their Horses.

I would love to be able to get an images similar to these at some point in my shoot. The Lighting is Beautiful, and I love the idea of a silhouette around both the horse and rider. In these image in particular I feel it really adds to their connection. Shelley stated on her website that because she loves the warm, soft, golden light found in the last few hours of the day, that's when she  usually schedules her shoots. In these images it's really apparent and works really well, Something I wasn't able to do fully in my first week shoot as it was extremely overcast BUT something I''m going to see if I can do in one of my future shoots :)

I absolutely love these images, They really show that true raw pure connection between the Horses and their riders, and that's something that I really want to capture in my images. I love the top image where the Horses has it's eyes shut as the girl kisses it, and I've tried to capture that in my images as well, which I feel I achieved with the below image in my images :) 

This image I love, I love the idea of being able to capture a moment between a Horse and Rider through a close up image of their faces, and I tried to get at least one image in my shoot that looked similar to this, I didn't want my image to look exactly the same as this as I wanted it to show a moment between them BUT I did take it as inspiration to try and get a similar image. And I feel I achieved that goal, and the image I did get turned out to be my favorite image that I really hope can possibly be a final for my Portfolio. 

As I was going through Shelley's Images I came across this which I find really informative. i'm going to use this information to hopefully get my own Silhouette Image for my portfolio if I can get images taken without the weather being over cast that is. 

My Portfolio Images

Once I had decided Equine Photography was defiantly something I wanted to do. I contacted my friend Sheena who owns a beautiful Bay, 18yr old, Standardbred, Gelding named Rhette. Sheena has owned Rhette for a really long time and both have a really strong bond, so thought they would be perfect to take images of for my first shoot :) 

The Night before this shoot Sheena contacted asking if I wanted her in her show gear which I thought about but then decided against as I wanted a more natural look, so asked if she could come dressed in her Riding Boots, Jodhpurs, and a Casual Top. I also asked if she would be okay riding Bareback rather than saddle, as I wanted the Rhette to look more bare rather than geared up as a way of trying to keep the images more natural as well.

For this shoot I wanted the focus to be purely on the Horse and Rider and not the background so I made a lot of the images I took with a Narrow depth of field a lot like Shelley Paulsons images, and most with a close crop. 

I love this image and I'm really hoping it will be a part of my final portfolio. I think it shows exactly what I want, just that connection between Horse and Rider. I made the image black and white like Shelley Paulsons Image and tried to make it look as similar as possible to the image I commented on above. I love how Rhette's eye is half  shut in this though, rather than open like in Shelley's image, and I love Sheena's head resting on his rather than looking up at the camera. I think it puts across the connection between them even more. 

This image I can't decide if I like it better in black and white or colour, which is why I added both images. I like the colour cause you can see the colour in Rhette's brow-band and I feel it makes the image more noticeable BUT I also like the black and white for the opposite reason of, you can't see any colour so it makes you look at the Horse and Rider more, which I guess I want. Will need to do some test print on this image and see which turns out better :) 

This image I love cause it was a real moment between them like the top image. She was sitting on the jump and he walked over and put his head on her leg, which I though was extremely cute. This image has only been cropped BUT I am considering editing it further but not to sure how I want to edit it at this point.

This image hasn't been edited at all BUT it's also one i'm considering. Although I don't think it shows the connection between them as much at the above image and the top image I still think it's a nice image of the two of them.

I tried to take a few images with Sheena Riding or Leading Rhette BUT I don't feel these images work as well as the ground images. The ground images I feel work because they are close to each other and you can see the emotional connection they have. With the riding and leading images especially the ones taken from behind. They kinda take the connection they have as horse ans rider away from the images which I feel doesn't work, and in doing so it also takes away the connection the viewers have to the image as well.