February 2018
Every winter, horse show participants make the trek with their four-legged partners to warm weather climes where huge hunter/jumper circuits run for months on end. Instead of suffering through record snowfall and freezing temps, they choose balmy sunshine in states like Florida, California, and Arizona. Literally tens of thousands of equestrians and support personnel make the journey each and every winter season.
My daughter Michelle is a professional rider and trainer based in California, so she participates in this mass migration, in her case to the Palm Springs area where the HITS Coachella Circuit starts in mid-January and continues into mid-March. HITS, not so coincidentally, is short for Horse Shows in The Sun!
I try to attend a week or two here or there, both to cheer on my daughter and also because some of the horses she rides belong to our jointly owned Cross Creek Farms! I breed and raise the babies here in Tucson, and when they are old enough they travel to California and learn their trade as hunters and jumpers.
It’s a great environment for an avid photographer, with all the color and action of showjumping. I’ve earned the nickname ‘Photographer Mom’ from my daughter, as I follow her and her students from ring to ring to record their rounds.
The photograph featured here is of a young Holsteiner stallion named Lutalo that Michelle bred and raised. It’s easy to take a beautiful image of a beautiful horse but the background of a horse show can be distracting. I put in quite a few hours today applying some digital magic to the original photo to create a fine art image that I’m pleased to add to my portfolio. There is a quality I look for in my photography, something I refer to as gesture, that expresses the essence of the subject matter. Here gesture is expressed in the direct eye contact, elegantly curved neck, perfect braids, and the warmth of color in the leather rein.
Prints available for purchase in my online ART PRINT STORE
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