Photo showing

Wow what an ordeal that was. I wanted to post to the blog and share a bit about photo showing for anyone that hasn't tried it yet but first I had to learn how to post photos (not easy, blogger seems to have changed some things).

   So first for anyone that doesn't know what photo showing is it is similar to but completely different from live showing. In a way it's easier than photo showing because you have as much time as you need to set up the photo just right. But on the same note the judges have lots of time to stare at your photos and pick them apart for faults. With that being said here are some examples of photos I am currently showing. This is my Leggs resin sculpted by Liesl Dalpe and painted by Joan Yount. This was actually a pretty good halter photos and has qualified for the MEPSA champ show (more on MEPSA later). Her name is Caramel Latte and she has been shown as a quarter horse but I may change that in the future.

 

Next we have Little Man Mango sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn and painted by Meghann Hoscheid Lorei. His name is Pacific Redeemer which is the name of my sons favorite horse from therapeutic riding.

 

 

I am not that into halter showing even in photo showing. So I have been working on making a large collection of performance photos both in CM/AR and OF. A lot of things have to come together to allow me to take photos though so I usually do a bunch and then none for awhile. I like to take all my photos outside because, until recently, I couldn't take a decent indoor photo of a horse or doll.So I took all the pictures in my back yard. That made things interesting because I could set up my table with my coffee footing (really, it's coffee), put up the arena walls and as long as I made sure there were no strange weeds in the background I was usually OK. Sometimes I would mess up and get the neighbor's truck cab in the photo (it's in the woods) but for the most part it all worked out. I had to try to take photos on a sunny day but I had to be in the shade of a tree or it would be too bright and the photos would be washed out. It also needed to be still. So when all the stars align and nothing falls over I can end up with photos like this. The horse is Cloud Dancing and I can't for the life of me remember who sculpted or painted him. But he's one of my favorite horses. Sadly he has developed cracks all over his body so he has been abruptly pulled from his live showing carear. And he was doing really well. He can still do nice things in photos shows though. 

 

Photo showing can get pretty creative. I think this is an "other English" scene I set up and for the description I said the rider was getting instructions before going into the ring. And I got to use Cloud Dancing again.

One of my favorite events in either live or photo shows is showmanship. It is so easy to screw up but not very complex to set up. Plus it's one of the few things I have any real life experience with since I was once given a showmanship lesson with a properly trained horse. It was to help me with some judging that I had coming up but it has helped me a lot in the show rings. I think showmanship is one of my favorite events. And Caramel Latte does pretty well in it.

I don't much collect OF horses anymore but I do have a few that I show in performance. This one's name is Just Because and she got that name because I couldn't think of anything else at the time. But she is proving to be a fairly versatile performance horse and has done well in live and photo showing. 

 

Have you noticed yet that my background keeps on changing? If you knew my yard it would let you know (somewhat) the season in which I took the photo. The ones I like the best are in early Spring before the giant weeds have started growing back. There is a little hill that goes up and out to the back field and it has a great little path (the trail photo of Cloud Dancing has a good shot of it). Ocassionally people have commented that my backgrounds are out of scale. But I think sometimes they just look more tropical. After all, those are Massachusetts palms (I don't know what they are really called but they get very big, are weeds and are shaped like palms sort of).

   Anyway, this last horse is Enchanted Eve. She is a Victrix resin sculpted by Carol Williams and painted by Angelica Nelson. 

I used to search out mail-in photo shows (I don't really like online shows) to send pics to but I started losing photos that way. So now I do all my photo showing with MEPSA they are a really great group that has been around for years and years and years. The year end championship show is a lot of fun and well worth the wait. I am really glad that MEPSA keeps on going as it gives me a place to keep on showing my horses even when there are no live shows to go to. Getting the results for the qualifiers is always fun and the champ show...is just exciting. I recommend if you have never done any showing with MEPSA to check out the group.