At the beginning of this year I sent my sponsors an email asking if there was anything I could do to help them in return for all the great support they have given me over the years. Angie from Mountain Horse came back to me and said ‘well actually there is something you could do….’
Fast-forward a few weeks and the day arrived for Dustry and I to be rookie models in a photo shoot for Mountain Horse!!!! Angie asked if I could find another rider, horse, and suitable location for the shoot, and after posting on facebook looking for a volunteer the lovely Rosie from rosewequine.co.uk offered to let us use her yard, herself, her horse, her dogs, and even her boyfriend for the shoot!
I’ve never done anything like this before so it was really interesting to see how the shots were set up, what kind of pictures they were trying to achieve, and how a day’s shooting pans out.
I groomed Dustry to within an inch of his life for the shoot. When we arrived I put him in one of Rosie’s spare stables whilst we did some other shots, typically he rolled, and tried to get covered in shavings but he was already too shiny and clean by that stage for any real damage to be done to my painstaking turn out efforts (4 buckets of hot water and 2hrs worth of prep!)
We were being used for a ‘dressage’ shot so white bandages on, long boots, and velvet hat at the ready. I was head to toe in Mountain Horse gear which included one brown and one black long boot (cunning time saving plan for the photographer/director!) I would like to say D was well behaved but he wasn’t, he was a spooky sod for the first 5mins, but as usual after working forwards he settled quickly and actually did some lovely elevated work, hopefully the pictures will capture his best moments, and less of my goofy facial expressions!
We then did a staged lesson/instructor shot with D and myself as the prop (he does a very good ‘stationary prop’ impression, I think it may be his forte), and then Rosie and I ended the day with a joint ‘hacking back home’ shot, which tested all our am’ dram’ talents as we pretended to make light-hearted conversation and ignore the camera we were riding towards.
The photos are of the Winter 2013 Mountain Horse collection (which is very nice so start saving to buy it now 😉 ) and will be used in a variety of places, so I have from now until winter to forget all about doing this, and then be surprised when I spot myself somewhere in several months time!!!
I must say a huge thanks to Rosie and her family for helping with this, and as always a massive thank you to my ever supportive and lovely sponsors Mountain Horse.