It’s taken me a while to write this up, but what a long day I had on the 26th October! I left the house at 6am and didn’t get home until midnight – despite this I had all images processed and uploaded by the end of the following day! Granted, I slept most of the Monday!

I won’t lie, I have been struggling to get events booked in (this is still a relatively new business, and I am a new tiny fish in a very big ocean of photographers), so when Martha Morgan Photography offered me a job up at CCR Equestrian, I jumped at the opportunity! It’s a whopping 2 hours away from where I live but I am not afraid of putting in the hours to get my business up and off the ground – I know it won’t always be plain sailing! Anyway, I managed to convince my partner Jesse to drive me up there so I could have a nap in the car – we arrived with plenty of time to spare and I even got a free cuppa! 

Now, I have never actually photographed arena XC, nor showjumping, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. I also have no concept of courses and how to remember where the rider is going so Jesse kindly stood with me and pushed me in the right direction to prevent me from missing the jumps! Armed with Shane’s (ESP Photographic) words about exposure and framing and under no circumstances having crouching ponies, I gave it my best shot! It was nice seeing riders of all different ages and abilities, and even nicer to see another horse called Blakey!! I have included a few photos below from the day – these are available to purchase on my Pixieset. 

The venue was the Lord Haldon Hotel – absolutely stunning but the lighting was slightly tricky. What an amazing group of people I met! The Kenn Valley YFC members have raised a lot of money for charity over the year and even raised more at the event with an auction. Above all, I don’t remember the last time I laughed that much – I was in tears on several occasions! Oh, and I also forgot to mention that this was the first time I’d ever done an event like this – so it was a day packed full of first-times and despite being on the go for 18 hours solid, I must admit I loved every single second. 

That’s the thing about this business for me – it’s not a chore, I thoroughly enjoy it. I don’t claim to be the best but I also put in 100% to everything I do, and it shows! This website, for example, I built 100% from scratch – the same with my Pixieset (although that was abundantly easier). I genuinely enjoy each second I am behind the camera, or at home editing content!

So there you go! It was a very long day and if you take into account travel, the cost of hiring lenses and the new jumpsuit I didn’t even break even but I gained SO much experience and got a lot of new photos for my portfolio so that’s something to celebrate! Now I just need to start getting my name out there a bit more and hopefully get a few more events like these before the end of the year!