London to Canterbury is a pretty long road journey, and with golden hour being… well… only an hour long, there’s not really any margin for error! With that in mind, burlesque performer Ruby Deshabille and I made sure we had plenty of extra time on our Equestrian Fashion shoot so we could make sure we got out into the fields on time. Looking for Equestrian Fashion series part one?  You can find it by clicking here.

Arriving at around 6pm, Ruby headed off to get hair and make up done whilst I set up my camera and Pete and Dom dressed Reducto W in his new white reins and feather plume. It has been a very long time since I was around horses, so I was pretty excited about the opportunity to shoot with such a beautiful stallion! By the time everyone was ready to go, it was 7pm and we wandered over the road to the nearby corn fields. We had about an hour to kill, so we decided to utilise the time with Reducto and get him settled into the shoot and used to having Ruby on his back.

Having Dom and Pete on hand for the shoot was an absolute blessing, especially at the beginning of the shoot when Reducto W was a little uneasy about the appearance of the giant white soft box tiptoeing through the corn field! Pete hopped on Reducto’s back whilst Dom slowly introduced the soft box into his field of vision. After a couple of minutes, Reducto W seemed pretty happy that the soft box was less of a threat and more of a toy… until he decided the corn was far more interesting that is!

The sun was still pretty strong around 7pm, as you can see above from Dom’s squint as he tries to look into my camera for a quick behind the scenes shot. Helping out by holding one of the Quadra heads with a Rotalux 135 Octa attached, the flash allowed me to under expose the shot a little more to capture stunning blue colour of the sky. Moving through the tracks in the corn so we didn’t damage the crop, there were a few limitations, such as not really being able to photograph red’s feet through the crops. However, we did manage to get some more full horse shots later on in the sunset shoot, so its all ok!

Shooting the Equestrian Fashion series with Ruby and Reducto W was such an incredible experience and one that will stay with me for a long time. I’ve certainly got the taste for shooting horses and hope to have the opportunity to shoot a few more over the next few years!

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