Featuring: Website Images for Michelle Desmond, Equine Specialist

It's always fantastic to see your work in action, whether it be on client's walls, websites or LinkedIn profiles.  And it's so gratifying to collaborate and create with and for clients to produce dynamic, compelling images to engage their audience or illuminate their story.

Recently, I had the opportunity to create website images for Michelle Desmond who is an equine specialist--An equine specialist is someone that assists Mental Health practitioners by including horses and creating a dynamic, nurturing and healing experience.  Because I am a horse lover myself, I couldn't wait to create the images.  The project would bring multiple skill elements together--creating gorgeous art portrait images of Michelle riding (she rides bareback and bitless) for the header images on her pages as well as head shots of her staff (horses!)  I couldn't wait to get started.

To create images that will work for websites, it's important that I know what the website template actually looks like and the "boxes" that the images will go in.  Sometimes, clients are working with web designers who can communicate site requirements, but in this case, Michelle was building her site mostly on her own.  To that end, Michelle and I met and went over the site requirements together before the shoot and created a shot list of the images we needed to produce on the day of the shoot, the timeline and what would be needed to create those images.

For this particular shoot, I was cognizant that all lighting would most probably be available light as some animals can be spooked by the flash of speed lights, large equipment setups or even reflectors blowing in the wind.  I did come prepared to create my own light, but knew that most likely I wouldn't be using any of the gear.  (I try to live by my husband's rule of "Better to have and not need than need and not have.")

I'm so excited to see Michelle's site go live--check it out here!

Are you in need of images for your website?  Drop me a line--let's plan it!

Portraits on Location: Equine Photography

What is it about loving horses?  I’ve never met anyone who outgrew their love of horses, myself included.  The relationship between Dolly and Michelle is a very special one and their connection is palatable.

I’ve known the two of them for a while now and Michelle and I have long been planning to create a gorgeous portrait of the two of them, but life got in the way, as it sometimes does, and our plans had to change.  Dolly currently has limited mobility, so our session took place in her stall.  

Creating portraits in a stall could have been confining--and stalls aren't always the prettiest of places (and you definitely have to watch your step(!), but I focused on their connection and just let things happen organically. It didn’t always work—horses are basically really big lap dogs that don’t always do what you need them to do.  

Every time I changed position, Dolly left Michelle to come over to see what I was up to. 

I think the in between moments came shining through.  Michelle and I hope that soon, Dolly will be able to walk further into a nearby field and we can continue our session, but until then, I hope these portraits demonstrate the very special love between these two.