The Photolicious Days of Summer

 It's my busiest time of year when everything happens at rapid succession with the demands of the job coming in all at once.  Can't complain, its good to be busy and I do love my job! 
The huge Dressage at DevonWood show has been uploaded to my gallery site.  What a job it was!  Some of my images appeared in the Chronicle of the Horse in an article on the show.   Look for a pictorial spread in the next issue of Flying Changes.  I am preparing those images for publication now.
The following weekend after DevonWood  I was up in the greater Seattle area photographing a series of  private photo sessions at various barns.  What fun that was, especially with people who were so great at getting in the spirit of the fun side of photo shoots.
  After wading through several magazine deadlines,  I am now ready to look towards the August events.  The ODS Breeders Showcase weekend is coming right up.   The following weekend is the ISR/OLD inspection at DevonWood.  

Above is an image I took up at River Run Ranch in Carnation, WA.  Lynn McGrew's Thunder.  What a beautiful subject he is.  I just had to play with it a bit. 

  For my first day of photo sessions,  I had arrived at 6:15 AM to catch some of that beautiful early morning light.  The whole weekend was predicted to be sunny so I sacrificed part of a full night's sleep and woke up before it was barely light out.  As I drove, I caught sight of the valley all draped in fog. suddenly I would have liked that 2 hrs of sleep back.  Plan B!  I was able to photograph a lovely gray elder horse in the fog (Julie Bennett's Gitano). 
Then we waited 2 hours until the fog lifted and started the scheduled  photo sessions.  By then the sun was up in the sky giving us just the very intense light that I had hoped to avoid.  Time to get creative.  Luckily there were various forested areas to play in including a wonderful old tree lined drive at the entrance to the property.  The Friesian below is Deb Hauck's Layla.  Because Layla is black, I ventured back out into the light to photograph her.   The backgrounds couldn't have been any better so Layla was framed by a beautiful natural backdrop. 

I have images of  several more horses and their people but perhaps next blog entry.  I really need to get back to my deadline work.  Happy "lazy" summer days to ya. 

Oh and in case you missed it, I have a pictorial feature photo spread published in COTH  The Chronicle Connection Through the Lens: The Land of the Lusitano utilizing several of my images from Portugal. 

ODS Championship Show

I provided the image for this striking poster design for the ODS Championship show this year. I will once again be the official photographer for this event. If you would like to sign up for photographic services, you can do so at my online galleries, or sign up in the show office the weekend of the show. You may be asked for your email to add functionality to your gallery browsing. You will receive an email back that requires you to click a link verifying your email. Once you do that, you should have no problem getting into the galleries.

Hoping for another championship show with great weather, good rides and a fun time for all.
And good photo ops!

You can view the 2008 ODS Championship show galleries by clicking on this link.

August has been an incredibly busy month with private farm photo session, being the official photographer for the AIM/AHA region 4 sport horse championships, the ODS Breeders Showcases I & II and the ISR/Oldenburg inspection. 17 foals and 7 mares were inspected on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the inspection being held at the Ultimate Piaffe.

Photo galleries are up for these events. If you had horses in either of these events and didn't get a chance to sign up, its not too late, I photographed every horse that came into the ring and should have photos of everyone. Just contact me to sign up and your proof gallery will be created.