Turning Live Show Photos into Photo Show Photos

      Since we are still social distancing people have been finding really creative ways to stay connected and still do things that we love. Breyerfest has moved to an all virtual experience and I have heard different people talking about doing Zoom gatherings or live sales to add to the fun of the experience. I'm into that. I bought a ticket to Breyerfest this year for the first time in my life. Several actually. And I entered the live show because I figured, why not? For Breyerfest I took new photos because they needed to be specifically of Breyer horses and I don't have any (or many) photo show photos that are up to my current standards that are of Breyer horses. 

     Some live shows have also moved to an online format. Under normal circumstances I would not have been able to enter Card Shark Live Model Horse Show. Normally held in Walla Walla Washington (which is totally fun to say!) it is clear across the country from me. But Bethany Shaw has moved it online and I excitedly entered. Then I got lazy. I may be able to talk myself into taking new pics before the cutoff date for uploading photos, but I might not. So what to do? I don't necessarily want to show the 2 Breyers I have entered in the Breyerfest Virtual show. So I decided to see if I could convert my vast number of live show photos into show photos. 

     In general, most of us take show photos (of our own horses) to help us commemorate a placing. Or maybe we find details that we love that we want to save. I am usually a bit rushed at shows so I take photos of placings so I have something to report on in the blog later. I don't concentrate on a good angle, I just want to take the photo and show what the horse, and the placing was. That's it. But sometimes I apparently get lucky with my shots. 

     For Halestorm's dressage entry in the above photo, the ribbon was not in the way and I could crop down the photo so it clearly shows the horse, from a pretty good angle, and shows where she is in the arena. Once I upload the photo and link it to the pattern I should be all set. 

      In this photo I think I wanted to get a nice photo of Halestorm being lead through her showmanship pattern. I don't usually get down that low to take my pics. I think I must have liked how realistic the doll looked. She looks like she is jogging along next to the pony. Things don't always work out that way. 

The picture also crops down really well. 

     The trail pattern in this set-up is one I really love because it is not super run-of-the-mill boring. There are a lot of pieces and it's easy to screw up. 

     I don't know if I love how this crops down. While you can see enough of the poles to be able to tell the pattern of the poles (while looking at the documentation) the carpet in the background is very busy and sort of distracting to me. I know that fancy backgrounds are unnessesary, but this picture might be out because there is a lot going on that doesn't need to be. 

      I like a lot of things about this natural trail entry. Lilith is a cute pony for performance, as long as she is used sort of creatively, I love the diorama, and Ethan's Abby model is in it. All good things. 

     To get the ribbon out of the photo I had to crop it down quite a bit but I can still see my favorite elements. I don't know if this is the best angle to view the photo though. This photo might also be out. 

     If you have been reading my blog awhile you know that Halestorm has a bit of a weird story. I bought her originally from Joan Yount a whole bunch of years ago. I had pony tack made for her and showed her quite a bit. After awhile I decided that I was going to sell her, not sure why, and Joan decided to buy her back from me. I sold her tack and doll separately. 

      Then a year or two ago I saw the pony again in one of Joan's sale ads. Not for sale, just helping to sell a doll. And I asked Joan if I could buy him back. At about the same time my friend Marci was selling some old Braymere tack that was made to fit a Bouncer and I was pretty sure would fit on Halestorm. So he came back to me, I got some Stone Pony sized western tack, made a couple of dolls specifically for him and he is back to being one of my favorite show horses. Hmm, maybe that was 3 years ago...

     This extreme cowboy entry has just always been one that I love. I found the reference photo and then made a super bendy doll to replicate it. It's just a really simple (as in, not much for "stuff"), but fun entry to set up.
      While I have taken some live show photos and cropped them down to be photo show pics, I might not go with any of these. I do have photos I took for Breyerfest and maybe I will just show those horses and maybe pic one more to round out the class list for Card Shark. Ialso have some photo show photos that I like. I have not decided yet. But it's still June, I have time to figure it out.