2011 was a great year for us.  We are lucky to have so many great clients with beautiful horses and dogs for us to photograph and that makes us very happy!  Last year we photographed all shapes and sizes of horses.  From shires to shetlands, polo ponies to dressage horses, warm bloods to hairy cobs – but they all have one thing in common, they are greatly loved by their owners.

I have chosen a few of my particular favorite shots from last year.  Many of them I really like because I can remember what it was like standing in that particular field, barn, forest etc and what we had to do to end up with the final image.  I hope that you enjoy reviewing them with me.

Bluebells

Possibly one of my favourite images of last year, I love everything about this photo. This bluebell wood is hidden away from view and I’m not sure that I could ever find it again, but on the day that we took this shot we had police helicopters flying overhead and two very surprised mounted police looking on. My only regret on that shoot was that I didn’t have a business card handy to give to the police horses!

Barn Door

This client was very limited as to when we could do her shoot as the horse in the photo was going to a new home the very next day.  We arrived at her yard and it was the hottest and brightest day of the year and there were very few shady areas in the paddocks to shoot. But this shot taken in an open barn door in full shade with the light pushed back into the barn with a reflector worked really well and it is a technique that we have used several times since then.

Polo Pals

This photo of Millie and her five polo ponies looked so relaxed and natural.  I do have some photos taken before this frame however, that prove that maneuvering five ponies around in a very tight space on fresh grass is indeed quite a challenge even for me! Here is one of the ‘before’ shots that shows the chaos before the calm!

Sepia Cow Girl

This was the only shoot last year that Nigel wanted to shoot in Sepia rather than colour as it matched the subject of the girls rounding up the cows on horseback.  It was also during this shoot that I realised that standing in a gate way holding a sack of cattle nuts while a herd of cows gallop towards you is not for the faint hearted.

Grey on Bridge

I never thought that this shot would ever happen.  Nigel had talked about getting a horse to stand on a bridge for ages, and this lovely horse would have stood up there all day!

Blue Eyes

I just love this photo, it is so different.  It would not have worked without the help of the lovely Fjord mane in the foreground.

Circle of Trees

Nigel has been wanting to stand a horse and model in this circle of tree stumps for years.  They are just a few minutes away from our house and they look different in every season.  We waited until late autumn for this image as the colours really complemented the horse.  What was really strange about this shoot was that when we did some close ups later in the shoot we noticed that the name of our model, Anna, was carved into the tree stump that she was leaning on – bit of an X-Files moment!  Below is a personal photo taken in the summer at the very same location of me and our dogs.  I think that Nigel also has another shoot planned here for 2012 so watch this space!

And now of course I am left wondering who, what and where we will be shooting this year. Please get in touch if you would like to have a chat about having a shoot with Nigel,  we are already taking bookings for Spring.

I am sure that Nigel will yet again produce some stunning work this year one of his favorite quotes is ‘the best photograph I have ever taken is the one I’m going to take tomorrow’.

Nigel getting his feet wet for the perfect shot!

One of our final equine shoots of the year - Anna and Sky - Nigel has been looking at the detail in theses trees all year.

Having eaten the first chocolate from my son’s Advent Calendar it makes me realise that Christmas is in fact on the way, despite the fact that I have been avoiding the Christmas aisle in Tescos since the end of September.

We have had a really busy time with both portrait shoots and shows up to now but we are now at that point in the year where we are down to the last few shows and shoots before we close the office door for the year.  It is also the time of year that you would think that Nigel would pack his cameras away for a while but in fact they go out just as much to shoot ‘personal projects’ and to try out new ideas.

Of course at this time of the year it also means that we both are spending far to much time in front of  a Mac, sending photos to the printers and packing orders.  I know when we are sending out a lot of orders as I seem to know the first names of all the post office counter staff in the area!

Having said that, it is still not to late to order products for Christmas.  I read lots of cliches about giving images as gifts but I am lucky enough to see peoples faces when they look at work that Nigel has created for them and they do provoke both joy and sometimes sadness as we have photographed a few equine and cannine friends this year that sadly are no longer with us.

Three handsome boys! This was a lovely secret birthday gift last month.

And now a paragraph of total unashamed in-your-face advertising – please remember that it is not to late to order the following Christmas products from us:

A voucher for a portrait shoot with Nigel  - these cost just £50 and are valid for 12 months after purchase, each voucher can have your own personal message inside it.  At the moment everybody who buys a voucher is being entered into a prize draw for a free 16 x12″ canvas, worth £120, to go with their voucher – just think how generous you are going to look if you win that and give it as a gift!

A 12″ x 12″ Storyboard - this costs £40 – four of your favorite images from a show, or portrait shoot with us, designed as one piece which is mounted and ready for you to frame.

Print Enlargements and Wall Art - reprints or enlargements of your favorite show or portrait images, prices are dependent on size, but a full price list can be found on our website.

Voucher For a Day’s Equine Photographic Workshop with Nigel -this costs £95 – you will reiceve a voucher for one of Nigel’s full day workshops including all tuition and lunch.  Both workshops will be held in the Spring and will be on a Saturday, one will be held at the Suffolk Punch Trust and one will be held at Redwings Horse Sanctuary in Norfolk.

Voucher For a Day’s Private Photography Tuition with Nigel - this costs £175 including lunch –  spend a day with Nigel on a one-to-one basis and learn how to improve on a range of photographic techniques and skills

We also have a range of both equine and landscape prints for sale, we have one final exhibition of the year coming up at the Pond Gallery in Snape Maltings in December from 15th – 21st.

All of these products can be ordered directly from me, the best way to order or to enquire about anything else is to contact me via email:  easternlightphotos@mac.com

Charlotte and Mrs P - early winter, what a lovely time of year to shoot.

Nigel wanted to take advantage of the symmetrical layout of the paddocks at this yard and the fact that we had a big blue sky for this shoot. We had to make sure that the horse and handler were in exactly the correct spot in order for this image to work.

I get asked a lot at shows “where do you find such amazing locations for your photoshoots?”  The truth is that most of the locations are within a few minutes of where the horse is stabled and to the naked eye some of the areas that we shoot in look quite plain.  You don’t need a very big area to take a really stunning horse photograph, but what you do need is the ability to pre-visualise what the finished photograph will look like – something I have mentioned before in my blogs.  I suppose it’s a bit like working on a theatre set, if you find the background that you want and you are able to put more light into the area or block light out then all you need to do is to put your horse and model in your space and hey-presto job done!

Time and tide had to be right for this shot.

Now of course it is not quite as straightforward as that, if it were then I would be out of a job.  What you have to remember is that you can have the most expensive camera kit in the world but it still does not have the power of your brain.  The lens on your camera acts in the same way that your eye does in that it just lets the light in.  The chip in your camera or your film then interprets what it sees but what it can’t do is make any compensations like your brain can.  For example your brain will allow your eyes to see detail in deep shadow or bright highlights but a camera chip or film will just see deep shadows as just black and bright highlights as white.  So the secret is to know your camera kit so well that you can trick it into producing exactly the image that you have in your brain – simple!  You will know when you look at your photographs and you have got it right, but more importantly you need to look at your photographs and know when you have got it wrong, a skill that sadly is gradually being lost in the age of digital photography.

Black horse, white dress - a good example of not letting your camera take control and make decisions for you!

Any photographers either pro or amateurs would do well in remembering the words of Ansel Adams - ”You don’t take a photograph you make it.”

A great example of getting the location right first and then placing your models where you want them.

Photographers assistant in training.

I have often said that the most valuable piece of equipment that our business owns is not any of the expensive lenses or camera bodies but is Nigel. A  slightly aged piece of equipment without a user manual, but priceless nevertheless. If you ask Nigel what is his most valuable piece of equipment I know exactly what he would say. It’s something that comes cheap, is all around us but always changing, very temperamental and fickle until you know how to tame it – sounds a bit like a description of me but of course I am talking about the photographers mistress – LIGHT.  You can reflect and manipulate it to great effect but if you want to improve your photography then you have to learn how to see it.

When we are on our way to a shoot Nigel is always worrying about the light, where is it, what is it going to do, how am I going to use it. And he worries with good reason because light is a key element in photography, always has been, always will be. Whether it be natural or artificial, light will make or break your photograph. Get it right and you will capture every detail in every leaf and every hair in the horses mane, get it wrong and you will capture a flat 2D  ’snap-shot’.
I have watched over the past 12 months or so and seen a rise in the ‘equine photographer’ in the UK and I am saddened to see an abundance of new photographers that seem to have little understanding of light and how it works. For example, I have seen a couple of photographers actually adverstising the fact that your shoot can be booked in between the hours of 10 – 4. At this time of year I wouldn’t even consider arriving at a shoot before 4 as the light can be so harsh this time of year. Harsh summer light is not only unflattering but will also lead to very contrasty images, white skies and burnt out faces. If you want to do one simple thing to improve your photography then I would suggest that you don’t take your camera out in the summer before at least 4pm. A pro landscape photographer would tell you not to take you camera out at all in the summer, but then landscape photographers are a very strange breed!

This image would not have worked if we had of shot it earlier in the day.

Of course we don’t always live in an ideal world where you turn up to a shoot and sit and wait for that moment of lovely golden evening light around 7pm for that perfect equine portrait. I have only seen that quality of light half a dozen times this Spring and Summer, and you have to be able to look at the day and predict that it is going to happen and be at right place at the right time because it lasts for just a few moments.

Look how the light takes your eye straight to the subjects then down to the reflection - lovely

Of course Nigel and I live photographically in a commercial world. We had a client earlier in the summer that could only have her shoot done right in the middle of the day.  Nigel had to have a little lie down with a herbal tea when I told him I had booked a portrait shoot it at 10am in mid-summer.  Now obviously we were not going to turn the job down but instead pray for a cloudy day. As it turned out it was one of the brightest, sunniest and hottest days of the summer, there was very little hedging or trees around the yard to use so Nigel’s great skill of using light to his advantage came into play. We stood the lady, who was also wearing the photographers nightmare colour white, and her horse in the doorway of a large barn. She was standing in total shadow, near darkness but we coaxed light back onto the subjects with a reflector. The great thing about using reflectors is that you can pretty much move light around to where-ever you want it to go without blasting the subject and burning out the image. The result was a really stunning images. The alternative of course would have been to shoot her outside in the full sun in patchy shade and turn the photos black and white to make up for the fact that the light is crap. Seems ridiculous I know but I have seen other photographers doing exactly the same thing they are certainly not doing the best for their clients!

Shot in the middle of Summer in the middle of the day - you have to learn to manipulate the light that you have.

Most of Nigel’s portrait work is shot using refectors, they enhance the quality of light that is around you and take away shadows from your subject. The other great thing about lighting your photography with reflectors is that you can take them anywhere, the middle of the forest, a remote beach. Of course you need a knowledgeable and highly skilled assistant to use them, that it of course where I come in! Only joking, what you actually need is somebody that will carry the photographers heavy kit plus reflectors and walk for miles down a track in search of the perfect location, can reflect the light into the correct spot of the image balancing a reflector with one hand and one foot thus keeping one hand free for throwing leaves and grass into the air to attract the horses attention – just one of my many many obscure and otherwise useless talents!

Use a reflector to enable you to shoot straight into the sun - look at the how the subjects hair is back-light and so is the horse forelock - these things don't happen by accident!

Anyway, as a reward for those of you that have reached the end of my ramblings a few golden gems from the master of using the light to improve your photography:

- think about the correct time of day to shoot
- try to shoot in open shade
- if you are taking photos under trees then sure that your subject are standing either
totally in the shade or totally in the light so that you don’t get ‘hot spots’
- if you look at your image at 100% on the back of your camera or PC and you can’t
see every detail of your subject especially the face, then you’ve got it wrong.

- converting a photo into black and white will not hide the fact that it has been taken in poor light.

I love this image – look at the detail in the trees – we had to keep moving around to avoid any direct light falling onto the horse or handler.

And just remember Nigel’s favorite profound photographers quote to help y0u “amateurs worry about equipment, professionals worry about money, masters worry about light” – or my less profound quote ” the more I practice the luckier I get”.

Me and Layali at the Kuwait Riding Centre

Those of you who have ever built up a close relationship with any animal will know how much it enriches your life.  An animal can become so much part of you, that you cannot imagine your life without them and you think that you will always be together – this is the stuff of dreams and fairytales – the truth is that you often have to make decisions which are best for your animal and put your own feelings to one side.

Yesterday we were booked at quite short notice to go and photograph a young woman and her beautiful horse.  What I hadn’t realised was that her horse had been sold and was leaving her soon and she wanted to capture something lasting for her to keep.  She had made the difficult decision to sell her horse as circumstances meant that it would be difficult for her to keep him, luckily she found him a fantastic home where he would be able to continue with his competition career.  So the lady in question made the brave decision to part with him and was understandably upset, but she will be able to keep tabs on how he is doing and has some stunning images from Nigel to keep.

Now they say that time is a great healer and all that, but when I was going through the images last night it became quite clear to me that the grief I felt about leaving my first ever horse is still with me.  You will find no photographic tips or subtle adverts within this blog, just a story about a much younger version of me and a horse.

I was lucky to get a teaching job in Kuwait just after the Iraqi invasion when I started my teaching career.  The flats that they provided us were pretty much out in the desert and I remember when I used to explore around the area I was sure that I could smell that distinct smell of hot horses.  I managed to find them one evening.  I found a large compound I would call it with metal gates all around it and I saw a lovely grey arab going inside.  Now seeing a woman wandering around in the desert, especially a white one, was quite rare.  I was invited inside for tea and for a look around at the horses, invited to ride their quietist Arabian stallion, managed to ride it reasonably well and not make a fool of myself and was invited back.  And so it went on, I used to visit the stable and ride a variety of horses every evening once the heat of the day had gone off.  My Arabic got better and the English of  the two Kuwait brothers who owned the place and the numerous grooms got even better.  I became part of their family, they looked out for me and I looked out for them.

One evening I remeber getting to the yard and there was great excitment around one of the stables as one of the owners family had bought themselves a ‘race horse’.  I remeber looking into the stable and seeing the most angry and aggressive horse I have ever and probably will ever see.  It took two grooms, each armed with a wheelbarrow to push her into the corner to allow a third groom to put hay into her manger.  She had raced a few times but her temperament and aggression meant that she would not be going back to the track again.  A big part of her problem was that she was jet black and many of the older members of the family at the stable strongly believed that “a black animal has a black heart”.  I however thought that she was beautiful, a modern day Black Beauty with a bit of a personality problem.  The next day she came to the door of her stable and took a polo out of my hand despite the grooms all yelling at me to keep away.  And so it went on for a couple of days, the more fuss I showed up over the stable door the more she showed it back to me, not rocket science I know but to men that had just lived through their country being invaded, it was a little odd, ‘the English girl has had to much sun”.  I was then told she was to be sold and after them quoting that she was worth thousands of Kuwaiti Dinars I offered them 100 Dinars (which is about £200) and then deal was done!  So I had to wait about 22 years to buy my first horse and then I buy one that I hadn’t ridden, was extremely difficult but was absolutely  very beautiful.  I was assigned a groom who suggested that as she was about to start a new life with me, we should give her a new name – so she went from being ‘Dana’ to ‘Layali’ which in arabic means ‘my nights’.

I won’t bother you with the details of our journey together, but basically with lots of patience, kindness, knowledge and determination I managed to get her from aggressive racehorse to calm riding horse in the space of about 6 months.  I learnt more about myself in those 6 months than I have learnt in my whole life.

Of course she was far from perfect.  One of her biggest problems was she was really difficult to mount and have her girth done up.  My groom suggested that I get on her from the other side and do the girth up from only one side, I tried it, it worked, I carried on doing it.  She also seem to associate white dressage boards as racecourse running rails and I spent many frustrating competitions coming up the centre line in working trot, track left, spot the white rail, breaking into full gallop and disappear into the desert.  We got there inventually, working together, she was the sort of horse that you had to suggest things to rather than ‘tell’. The one thing I never did with her was to lose my temper.   She loved to go out on long rides which we did every weekend from the yard.  It was quite a sight, 20 or so riders all on stunning arabs and my black mare cantering across the desert with a pack on dogs following us – great times.

I used to go back to the UK in the summer for a few weeks, Layali would be turned out in a paddock for the summer.  My groom used to tell me that she always knew when I was coming back as she would get really restless the day before, now I don’t belive this for a minute but it was nice to hear.

Ready for dressage!

But of course things change, your life changes and I couldn’t live abroad forever so after 8 years I had to return to the UK.  Yes of course I looked into bringer Layali home with me but she would never have coped with the stress of the journey and she had come so far from the angry animal that I first met I couldn’t take the risk of that side of her personality returning.  I heard horror stories of horses freaking out on plane journeys and having to be put down, so I made the difficult decision of leaving her in the yard where I knew that she would be content.  And then after that your life together becomes a succesion of goodbyes – last competion – last hack -last time of sitting in the paddock with her – last time to stand and talk noscience to her over the stable door and then I left and she was gone from my life.  The sad thing is that I remember the very first time I saw here like it was yesterday but I do not remember the last time, I think that it was of those incredibly painful moments that you put to the dark depths of your mind – it is in there somewhere but I don’t want to see it.

And that’s it, our story, the story of Layali the ex-racehorse and the English girl.  I heard from the stables a few month after I left that they had put her into foal to one of their best stallions – and I can only hope that she has lived out her days in luxury.  Of course I now own two beautiful ponies that I adore, but they say that you get a ‘once-in-a-lifetime- horse’ and Layali was mine.  Goodbye dear friend.

Same I didn't know Nigel when I had her - I have very few photos of her

Schooling in the sand

As part of my job I am looking at and assessing images every day.  I am usually the first person to see the images on a computer screen after any shoot.  I have to trim down the images that Nigel has taken and pull out the very best of the best.  Each image has to be perfect or as near damn it, if I see anything wrong then it has to go. In my opinion the most under-used computer button  in the age of digital photography  today is the delete key.  Our lucky selected few images then go through  a set work flow that we have and they move back and forth between my Mac and Nigels a couple of times.  Basically what I am saying is that each image is looked at several times before it leaves this office – quality control on steroids – but it is worth it.

When we look back at some of Nigels best shoots I always hear him say “if I could shoot that again I would angle the reflector differently, …..just moved the model one step to her left, ……just used a slightly greater depth of field……..”etc, etc, etc.  I have never ever heard Nigel say ‘that image is as good as I am ever going to get”, the day that I hear him say that, is the day I will confiscate his cameras and call for the men in white coats.  I suppose what I am trying to say is that whatever you do in life be it photography, riding etc you should always strive to do it better.

I read an interview with Gordon Ramsey once and his take on life is that “if you can’t be the best  then why bother” – a bit extreme I know but  the sentiment behind it is something that I really believe in.  You have to strive to be the best that you yourself can be at something.    Now I know a lot of photographers who already think they are the best, so in my opinion they are unable to grow and develop.  If you are not self-critical in whatever you do then I don’t think that you can ever reach your full potential.  For example, in the jazz band that I play with I stand next to a friend that I consider to be one of the best trumpet player that I have ever heard.  He will play a long improvised solo that is so great, so musical and so technically correct that it makes you feel like you are in the presence of greatness.  When he has finished I pat him on the head, he is very short, and offer a few humble words of congratulations. He  is however, usually  moaning under his breath that his super top G was a tiny-weeny bit flat.  Now I would wet myself with excitment if I ever managed to actually play a top G, let alone to be able to play it remotely  in tune.  Now I know that he will always strive to be the very best he can be  - a lesson for many so-called “professional” photographers out there.

So has Nigel ever captured the illusive ‘perfect image’ – well I certainly know that in his quest for the perfect image he never stops learning and trying to improve.  He has of course come a little bit close to it a couple of times!

If I had to pick one of Nigel’s photographs to illustrate my take on “the perfect image” then I would choose not a horse photo, or a portrait but a panoramic landscape that was shot in Spain a few years ago  It was late afternoon and although a shoot hadn’t been planned it suddenly looked as if the light was going to turn from being good to being amazing – that beautiful golden light that covers the scene but only lasts for a few tempting minutes. Now of course a lesser  photographer would have slowly picked a spot, camera onto Auto, finger on the shutter at 10 frames per second, the camera then chooses for you an average shutter speed, average exposure, average light, keep your eye in the viewfinder and hope the magic will happen – but the image that you end up with is just that – average.  But with Nigel it was more like this:  run along beach with  a 6 x 17″ film camera in a case that is the size of a suitcase along with a heavy duty tripod, set it up, film in the camera, attach the viewfinder, quick light meter reading, attach a grey graduated filter,  attach the shutter cable, cock the shutter and  shoot.  The light was so fleeting in fact that Nigel only managed to shoot one roll of film, that’s only 4 frames with a panoramic camera.  When was the last time I saw a photographer only shoot 4 frames? Never.  Anyway, the film goes away, the slides come back and excitment mounts as they go onto the lightbox for viewing.  Nigel’s instincts were right, even in his haste, the image was perfectly framed, exposure was perfect, just a slow enough shutter speed to give the waves some movement but without losing the detail in the water, beautiful golden light saturated by Velvia film – the perfect image, captured on a very difficult to use piece of kit.  And then those words……”what’s that yellow thing I can see on the edge of the rocks?”, and then “bugger, there’s yellow carrier bag caught on one of the rocks!”  Now of course, had Nigel had seen it through his viewfinder then he would have had to walk over to move it without leaving footprints in the sand and by then the light would have gone.  So the ‘near perfect image’ was then scanned, put into photoshop, bag removed and hey presto  an even nearer ‘near perfect image’.

Of course you can’t spend your life always getting better day by day, it’s a bit like riding a young horse, in the saddle one moment and on the floor the next, but the amount of times you can dust yourself off, reassemble your pride and jump back on sorts out the men from the boys.  You also have to take time to stop and reflect where you are and how far you have come.  If you spend all of your life looking up and seeing how much further it is to the top of the ladder you  only end up with a crick in the neck.  Yesterday, when we were in the middle  a shoot, we got a phone call right out of the blue from Olympus User Magazine asking Nigel for an interview, it’s moments like this that  you realise that the view from our particular ladder isn’t that bad at the moment.  Of course there are many photographers that are on the same ladder as us that are trying to admire the view without even leaving the bottom rung and that’s a shame.

So what am I trying to say to the budding photographers out there, try to be the best that you can be, don’t settle for “it is good enough” – read, learn and look at the best photographers in the world, don’t settle for average – we can all swim in the sea of mediocrity but it takes a true pro to climb out the other side.

Spanish Beach - one of Nigel's near perfect "perfect image" - this photo was later published in the book "Developling Vision and Style" by Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite and David Ward - a good insight into how top photographers view their own personal style.

There has been something that has been annoying me for a few days now and I have been trying to decide if I should blog it out to the world or not.  Well at the risk of sounding like a member of the cast of ‘Grumpy Old Women’ here it is.

Myself and my son were leaving our local Tesco’s store early evening recently when I was approached by a lady clutching a clip board and I heard those fatal words “could you spare a few minutes of your time madam”.  Now usually I walk away with some excuse but I spotted that the lady was a sales person from a well known franchised portrait company and professional curiosity got the better of me.

The very polite sales lady was trying to tempt me into buying a ‘half price portrait sitting’ – that’s fine, I don’t have a problem with that.  What I do have a problem with however, is that try as hard as I could, I could not find out what the prices of any of her portrait products were.   Anybody that knows me well will know that I am the sort of person that likes a verbal challenge, so I used all my skills of reason, being submissive, being more assertive to getting downright awkward, despite all of this I could not break this ladies sales patter.  The only thing that she would give away was that they were doing a special offer on acrylic prints and that if you bought one the second one would be half price – but no mention of how much one would cost!  So with a defiant swing of my ‘Bag For Life’ I walked away.

As I was driving away this incident started to really get under my skin- it’s crazy really, you wouldn’t go to Tescos to be told that nothing had a price on but they  would let you know how much you had spent once you had collected your shopping.  When I got home I went onto the company website, no prices anywhere but lots of things on special offer.  Special offers are great whatever you are buying but they mean nothing unless you know the original value of the product.

I hate not being able to get to the bottom of something, some of my friends would say ‘stubborn’, I say ‘enquiring’!  I went into Ipswich the following day and I saw a different sales lady representing the same company in the foyer of WH Smiths.  I went directly up to her the conversation when pretty much like this:

Me:  I am interested in a family portrait shoot but I need to know how much the prints etc will cost me.

Sales Lady:  We are offering shoots half price today if I can just take your details.

Me:  I only want to know your prices so that I can see if I can afford it or not.

Sales Lady: I can offer you a half price shoot today madam, if I can just take your details.

Me:  I just want a list of your prices.

Sales Lady (slight pause before answering): We are doing a special offer on Arcylic prints at the moment, if you order one you can have a second one half price.

Me:  How much is one Arcylic print?

Sales Lady (starting to go a little red in the face now, I’m wearing her down): Our special offer on Arcylcis only lasts till the end of the month.

And so it went on for a few more minutes before I got bored of the fight, flashed my copy of Photo Professional at her and walked off.

Anyway the upshot of this rambling is that we have decided to put all of our products with the actual price that they are on our website for you all to see.  None of this ‘prices from…..’ for us, you choose what you want to match your budget, no hidden extras and certainly no high pressure sales techniques.  I hate not knowing how much things cost, a bit like the ‘fly to Europe for just 99p’ type thing – so just click onto our website  http://www.easternlightphotos.com  and have a look for yourself.  And don’t  forget that we have a special offer on acrylics at the moment……………!

Discussing business plans with Patches

"If I had that camera I could take good photos" - if only it were that simple!

In a former life I used to be a music teacher working in a private school in the Middle East.  What does this have to do with photography? Well I often got asked by parents ‘if I pay you twice as much will my child learn twice as fast?’  Now that I work in the photography business I get a similar question ‘if I get a better camera will I take better photos?’ My standard answer is usually that the most valuable part of a camera is the bit behind the viewfinder, at which point about a third of the people that asked the question start looking at the actual viewfinder on their camera, another third nod and walk away in deep thought and the final third think I’m on another planet!

If you enjoy taking photographs for yourself, or you are an aspiring professional then I can give you a few hints and pointers.

Many thanks to Jo for providing us with Mary, her Suffolk filly, such a beautiful model.

The most important way to improve your photography is to learn how your camera works inside out.  Set your camera onto ‘manual’ so that your camera doesn’t make all the decisions.  Nigel always says that when he is doing a portrait shoot or shooting fine art if he has to worry about what his camera is doing then he can’t be creative.

Another good tip is to think about the composition of your photograph.  I have seen many good equine photos spoilt by a cluttered background, electric fence tape and chemical toilets!  If you have chosen a good location in the first place then you are usually only a couple of steps either way from a good image.  And Nigel’s most important tip…….pause for drull roll………….make sure you know as much about your subject as you do your camera.  With equine photography it is very difficult to make a good horse look fantastic, it is however, very easy to make a good horse look like a cow.

Mary

Another good thing to avoid is the ‘spray and pray’ technique, where you take hundreds of photos and hope that ‘there must be a good one in there somewhere’.  I have seen several people advertising recently that on an equine portrait shoot they will provide you with a CD of up to 200 images – photography should be judged on quality not quantity.  If you said to me you can have 200 cheap standard quality meals out or 10 meals in top restaurants I would go for quality every time!  I think that when you either take portraits yourself or you have a portrait shoot you should go for those few images that just capture the magic.

And don’t forget that the person behind the camera should make the image happen, the camera itself in essence is just a box  Or you could just book Nigel, as he knows how to use his box better than most, but then I have to say that or I would be out of a job!

This filly needed a very soft back drop to show off her pretty face

It was Robert Burns that wrote the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, well yesterday was a good example of that when one gypsy cob certainly had not read the terms of his model contract!

Nigel had been planning and looking forward to this particular shoot for a while.  The day started really well for us.  We took a trip to Norwich to collect Nigel’s new camera and discussed repairing his broken shutter.  We also picked up a copy of Photo Professional magazine which has an interview that Nigel gave to the editor about his work in the equine photography field.  So it was with an unusually high sense of pride that we arrive at our shoot location early evening really pretty chuffed with ourselves.

We had choosen a beautiful black and white gypsy cob with long flowing mane and tail which had been groomed to perfection.  Our model for the evening was wearing the dress that she had worn for her Year 11 school prom and with her long red curly hair she looked stunning.  Nigel had seen the exact spot that he wanted, a very old and grand oak tree sitting at the bottom of a very green meadow.  The sun just started to filter through the clouds, just the right amount.  So Nigel was in place, equipment ready, horse and model ready and two assistance ready. Unfortunately however, our equine model, King, lived up to his name and was ‘not amused’.  He was not at all worried about reflectors, the large pack of dogs that was around us or the fact that his owner was wearing very un-British Horse Society dress.  But there was something either on the air that he could smell or in the wind that made him unsettled.  We tried for a while, and despite all our tricks and tips to get him to stand and prick his ears at the right moment, we failed.

I have uploaded one photos of King but you can see that the model looks a little tense and you can also see that she is holding onto him very tightly which is not what Nigel wanted.

Charlie and King

There comes a time when you are photographing an animal when you know that it just not going to happen and you are best just packing up and trying again another day.  It was suggested to us that maybe Nigel should give up his vision of ‘beautful girl with gyspy cob with flowing mane’ and go for ‘beautiful girl with large bay horse with big ears’.  So King was sent back in shame to his hay and the young bay warmblood ‘Darcey’ was brought out.

Now when Darcey’s owner described her as a ‘young, bay thing with big ears that shouldn’t be very mental’ I could see the creative spirit start to leave Nigels face.  However, Darcey turned out to be probably the easiest and the most photogenic horse that we have worked with in a very long time.  She stood where we needed her to, she turned her head when we needed her to and best of all those gigantic ears were always pricked!  They say that big ears on a horse is a sign of great intelligence, well this was certainly true in the case of Darcey as I am sure that some of her poses were straight out of Vogue.

So the shot was captured, praise, pride and  polos all round.

What’s that saying about waiting ages for a bus then two coming along at once?  Well Nigel had been talking to me about getting a model and horse into a bluebell wood for a shoot and last week we managed to do two on the same day!

Our first shoot was with Jade and her lovely Welsh stallion Zeus.  The idyllic and peaceful woods which had been chosen as the location was on that particular afternoon for some reason surrounded by police search teams, police helicopters and two police horses.  Nigel wasn’t that keen on me offering the two mounted police officers a free shoot as we were in the area, but hey, business is business I say.

We found our spot that we wanted in the woods, we particularly needed a spot with open shade and a dense covering of flowers.  We also needed to make sure that we could get into the correct position without damaging the flora for others.  Nigel wanted to shoot Jade and her stallion as if they were a part of the woodland landscape rather than the main feature.  As usual, it was important for us to work as a team as we have to modify the natural light around us with reflectors as well as making sure that the horse and model are in the correct position.  Nigel’s post processing of the images then  must compliment and enhance the envisioned image.  Many thanks to Jade and her team for their help with this shoot!

Jade and Zeus bluebell shoot number one

An hour later, and a few miles across Essex we arrive at bluebell wood shoot number 2.  Totally different lighting conditions compared with the first shoot.  If you shoot like we do using natural light, you must be confident enough to know how to get the best out of every lighting condition and be able to adapt quickly when the light changes.

We drove to the woods to meet our 2nd models Kerri and her cob Samson.  Kerri must be complimented on the turnout of her horse as he was immaculately groomed and presented to us, and despite the fact that he was a little on his toes he was a credit to her.

The idea at this shoot was going to be similar to the first shoot but due to the reduced light levels and the fact that the bluebells weren’t growing as dense as in the first shoot, Nigel went for an image that represented the connection between horse and human with the bluebells as a soft backdrop to the scene.  Many thanks to Owen who was our assistant on this shoot.

Kerri and Samson in bluebell shoot number two

Later in the week we turn up at Topthorn Equestrian Centre for a Working Hunter Show.  When we are horse shows I often get told by competitiors that they are worried that they will break Nigel’s camera and I always smile and laugh as if I have never heard it said to me before. However, in the lap of honour of one of the final classes of the day, the shutter on Nigels beloved Olympus E3 broke.  This is no reflection on the quality of his camera but the sheer volume of his work load.  Many thanks to all the kind offers of spectators camera phones, point-and-shoots and Mr Foulger’s Box Brownie, but I kindly lent him my body (camera  that is) for his use for the rest of the show.

After a mad rush by Hannah from the London Camera Exchange he now has a new one in time for tonights shoot.

So who was the woman that broke his camera……….?  You know who you are!

This is the image that you get if you shoot a horse with a broken shutter!