Arrogance is the cowgirl that talks, confidence is the cowgirl that shows.

In July of 2021, it was suggested to me by a local parent of young equestrians that I look into photographing the Central District OHSET (Oregon High School Equestrian Teams) meets. It took me a full year (July 2022) to gather the courage to make my inquiry.

At the time, I was told the photographer’s position for 2023 was already filled. Though a bit disheartened, I responded that my name please be kept on the back-up list. (I didn’t even know if there was a back up list, I just wanted to plant the seed.) To my great surprise in January of 2023, the Central District Chair reached out to see if I was still interested in photographing the meets. I was. The rest is history.

I had never photographed an event like the OHSET meets. I had never photographed an event, period! I am a one-sitter portrait photographer usually in a studio.

I’m also not an equestrian. I don’t know the first thing about riding a horse (except to not fall off!) However, I had photographed a handful of riders in private sessions and had a sense of what looked good on camera.

Upon entering the arena for the first time in March 2023, my knowledge base for the exact how and what to capture in each event was whatever information I could gather on the internet. And that was very, very little. I think…I found some articles on how to photograph jumping? I had to trust my gut on this one.

Quickly, I would learn the basics of what I needed to capture down on the ground in the arena, as well as in the culling and post processing of 25,000 images. If it’s true that the mastery of a skill takes 10,000 hours, I must be on my way to becoming an expert OHSET photographer, right?

Wake up everyday as a beginner.

(One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received from Guggenheim fellow, internationally awarded visual artist, and mentor Sama Alshaibi.)

Sometimes, the more seasoned we are in our work, the more our ‘expertise’ limits the expansion or evolution of the work, because we approach problem solving or the process of making the work with a fixed point of view. As a novice, the learning curve of a skill may be bigger, but the space for discovery and growth is just the same.

Being a newbie to equestrian event photography, I entered the arena with the intention to photograph riders in a style that mimicked the equestrian imagery I saw online (so that I could deliver a product folks were familiar with), and I also gave myself permission to photograph and deliver work in my personal style of artistry.

After seeing the final sales of meet photographs, I would say my blended approach to this type of photography was a success. Images in both categories (traditional and creative) were purchased.

Looking back on this experience, the easiest part of the process was to say, “I want to photograph OHSET.” The hardest part was to put those desires into action. I love me a comfort zone, and it was a big step outside my comfort zone to enter the arena trusting I would do a great job. But you know what? Starting somewhere is better than starting nowhere, and dreams only have a chance at coming true when we give ourselves the permission to get out there and ride.

The main event.

This year, the OHSET meets occurred over the span of three weekends in the months of March and April.

At each meet, riders were allowed to participate in up to five of the twenty-five+ events in rotation. Sometimes, event start times overlapped in the multiple arenas, so my plan for getting the best coverage was to photograph each event at least once over the three meets, then choose events with the most ‘action’ (aka games and fan favorites), and then spend any additional ‘off’ time roaming the stables, pens, and warmup arenas for candids.

In the galleries below, I present to you a small selection of my favorites from the thousands of photographs taken. Whittling down the initial rider galleries to just a couple of hundred photos for this page was painfully hard. Fortunately for us both, many more gems are posted on my Instagram @on _ high _ ground. :)

You will see the galleries divided by theme: “The Main Event” featuring a grouping of artful images that present the versatility in skill set required of the OHSET riders; Drill as a “dance” highlighting the grace and fluidity of the Drill event; and “A Modern West” where the scenes of OHSET are reimagined as a Wild West movie set.

Every time I look at these photos, I am in awe of both horse and rider, and most especially, the working relationship between the two. I hope you excite by these photos as much as I do.

Everything you do

with a horse

is a dance.

-Buck Brannaman

What is the purpose of photography? I’d say, it’s to make the viewer feel something, to remember a spark of life deep within the soul. Photographers capture specific moments because they feel moved by what they see.

What sets great photographs apart from the mediocre? It’s those images that can transport the viewer through sensory experiences. What do you smell, taste, touch, and feel when in the presence of the photograph?

What makes for beautiful riding? I’d say, like photography, it has to do with a sensorial and energetic connection. I’d say, it’s the rider’s ability to confidently and respectfully lead and communicate with the horse. And, how does the spectator feel watching the two?

*

While photographing the Drill event at CDOHSET meets this year, I felt as if I was watching a ballet. Synchronized sets of dancers weaved in and out of formation with horse tails tracing patterns and flags rippling in the wind.

I wanted to photograph this event in a way that highlighted the movements of individual riders and scenes and told the story of the whole performance. To do this, I experimented with panning, a form of tracking an object in motion with the camera, and on a fixed prime lens.

Because I was often at a distance from the riders, I could not zoom in on movement-specific clues like flying dirt. Therefore, panning presented other sensorial clues like trails of light and color and objects frozen in motion while backgrounds blurred. By slowing my shutter speed and panning the camera at the same speed of a moving horse, I was able to convey the varying speeds of the horses in formation.

Working on a prime lens meant I had less control over the framing of the scene (I can’t zoom in and out on whatever I want in the moment), but it allows for more surprise as to what I’ll be able to capture. In the surprise can be exciting discovery.

My hope is that when you look at these images you feel the same fluid and beautiful movements of the riders and their equine companions that I did. I hope you can feel their dance.

A Modern

West

There was a moment in preparation for the Sorting event when I stood on the makeshift photographer’s platform at one end of the arena, looking far out at the other end, and feeling myself transported to the set of a Wild West movie.

In the distance, backlight by the golden evening light streaming through open tractor doors, bands of riders lined up by team readying themselves to sort feisty little cow. They resembled a sea of set extras making micro adjustments to posture in saddle and rolling shoulders under hot costume as a way to quell their excitement while waiting patiently for the camera to begin rolling and their cue to charge the land. The energy was electric.

*

Way back in my college days, I took an American Film History class. We didn’t have digital projectors in auditoriums then, so students had to drag themselves down to the library and pop in video cassettes of that week’s vintage movies on the class syllabus. I would happily sit in the hard wooden chairs for hours watching mid 20th Century Westerns. (I might have been born a city girl, but I loved the dust and drama.) (Also, here is a great list of Westerns if you are interested.)

To this day, period pieces — especially those that take place in the American West — are still on my tops-list to watch. I think there is something about the “true grit” required to survive the ‘perils’ of the landscape that I am attracted to. To venture into the unknown, you’ve got to be both tough and trusting in yourself. I imagine the OHSET riders tap a deep well of courage and faith when they prepare to compete with their horses.

There were several other moments during the meets when the dust swirled, leather reigns whipped, and riders circled 5, 10, 20 at a time, that the scene before me transformed into a vision of the Wild West. So, I wondered, “what if…?” What if these OHSET images were the stills of a rehearsal on a movie set? What would this film be called?

It would be what we see before us: our future as written and directed by these young ones, our Modern West.