I haven’t taken any brilliant photos lately.. so here are some of the photographs I made during our honeymoon. This was me trying to be all, “Look, I’m a photographer and a tourist.” Enjoy.
Tag Archives: photography
Photography Friday
In lieu of a real post, here are the final photos from the engagement photo shoot I did last week. Ang is an old friend that I met through the NC State Dressage team, and it turns out I actually went to High School with her now fiance Andrew! Such a small world! I loved getting to see them again, and meeting their newest addition to the family- Maya! Look at that puppy fur! So cute!
A Show Recap: Portofino Horse Trials
Hey there.
At this point in time, I will admit that I am a little too brain-dead to go into a full blown diagnosis of our show on Sunday. After an exhausting weekend filled with Michael Buble:
Buble, Box Seats, and Big finales- oh my!
and an engagement shoot for a friend:
A preview from the engagement shoot
by the time Sunday rolled around I was straight up exhausted. So I decided we were just going to have fun and see what happened, with our fingers and hooves crossed that things went well.
Well, we had truck issues getting to the show and a very kind friend ended up bringing the ponies out to Portofino for us. So I went way out of order, but luckily the show management was willing to be flexible and let things happen as they may. Thank goodness. Foster felt super relaxed in our warmup, so I rode around for 20 or so minutes before going in the arena.
I have watched the video plenty of times and hashed it all over in my head, but here’s the short version: In hind sight maybe I should have focused on getting him more in front of my leg, but whatev’s. I see plenty of things to work on (I smacked myself in the head when I saw my reins getting long again, what is WRONG WITH ME?!) and some bracing stuff, so all in all, not our best test, but not our worst. So frustrating that again our walk wasn’t up to par until the last couple strides, but good enough to get a 7.5. I think I was being a bit conservative because of the last show when he broke. Anyways, here’s the video, which speaks for itself.
Show jumping was catching a lot of riders out with refusals and what not, so I just decided to go in relatively aggressively (again, Foster was completely blase’ through our warmup but just in case) and get er’ done. He got in a bit deep in some spots and cross cantered a ton (where did that come from?) but because the footing was a bit deep I knew if we stopped we’d never get going again, so we persevered. Clean and clear, but not pretty. Oh well.
I had a tired, hot horse by the time we got around to cross country (PS what is up with the temperature going up 10 degrees on show days?!?) but felt pretty good about the course. Trotted over fence 1 as per our game plan and attempted to rock and roll, but unfortunately never got up to speed because Foster wanted to look at all the funny terrain questions (oh-mah-gerd what is the patch of sand doing there?! and Oh snap! there’s a pile of junk beside fence 3! ahh!) but was a good boy all in all. He hopped over the Novice sized (oh yes, 2’11” fences on a BN course!) fences easily. Not that he shouldn’t have, but still. Here’s the video of our cross country, in which I yell about a certain ‘outrider’ who was wandering around my fences as I was trying to go go go! So I (IMHO) politely was trying to tell people that she was being a distraction and needed to get out of my way! Sheesh!
We ended up 3rd out of 8th, on a 34-point-something dressage score and 5 time faults. I’m pleased and think we are very close! Entry is sent in for another horse trial at CHP on the 10th of November, where we will do our damnedest to make time on both SJ and XC!
Until next time.. keep kicking!
Photography Friday
I have a few things to give an update on, but unfortunately not the time to spend on any of them. So, have fun looking at some portraits of Drake I took in the yard before the leaves are gone! I definitely love taking portraits of animals, hopefully these give you a sense of his goofy personality 🙂
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The new camera
As I mentioned last week, I finally bought a new camera. My old camera was a Nikon D40, and my first DSLR. It took me through my concentration in Photography at the School of Design and has traveled with me all over the world in the 3 years since, amassing over 25,000 shutter clicks in the process.
Camera with a passport:
Capri, Italy in 2008 and Loch Ness, Scotland 2013
Now, I feel like I’ve taken the most beautimous photos ever some pretty great shots with this camera. All of my portfolio photos came from this camera, and everything I’ve taken at work. It is still functioning perfectly. However, there are a couple features I was starting to miss. One was that the D40 can take up to 3 frames per second. In horsey terms, that means if you hand your camera over to someone and ask them to shoot you jumping you might get a take-off, mid-air, and landing shot. If their timing is good. Likewise, when I was at Rolex, there were a couple really epic moments where I would have loved to get 6 shots off as fast as possible, but my D40 just couldn’t keep up. 3 frames per second just isn’t cutting it anymore.
The other thing I was missing was a video mode. Now, I used to not need this, what with iPhones being so handy and what not, and I used to own a Flip (which I think was destroyed by good ol’ North Carolina humidity). But again, especially in the horsey world, there are times when having a nice HD quality video is really helpful.
So I’ve been perusing for a new camera, one that can take at least 6 frames per second, with video mode, that won’t break the bank. Enter the Nikon D7000! It may have taken me several ebay attempts to get one, but it’s minnne!
Oh happy day!
I am hoping to take it out to the barn or practice with some action shots of Drake to see what I can do… but I’m so excited! Definitely expect more photos soon!
Red on the Right 