Kenzie and Freya
“When one door closes, another one opens,” my mom always tells me.
Sometimes, I get really upset when plans don’t work out, or when there is something I’ve been waiting on forever to happen…and it just doesn’t. Releasing my expectations to an outcome can be hard, and in this impromptu photoshoot with Kenzie and Freya (which I’m soooo proud of), I had a very specific image I was hoping to capture, but the circumstances of the day wouldn’t allow for that vision to come to life.
Originally, our plan was to work inside Smith Rock (YES, we can have a photoshoot with your horse IN SMITH ROCK) but Freya was having a difficult time on the trail. Despite the main bridge being closed off to hikers, thus reducing seasonal traffic, there were still just too many people (and barking dogs) on this day to carry out the peaceful shoot we were hoping for. Even after foregoing our idea to ride on the designated horse trail that leads to the epic water ford, and working briefly on a side trail with much less traffic, we decided it would be safer for all of us to head back up the hill and work at Kenzie’s home — where Freya could feel calm and secure among her horse friends.
Smith Rock State Park, Tumalo, Oregon. The horse trail is to the left, and starts after the long concrete slope down into the park.
Thankfully, Kenzie had a gorgeous field we could work within where we were able to capture a variety of images from headshots, to senior portrait style twirls, to fun horse and rider poses for a varied collection of timeless work that can fit beautifully in a custom album or as a series of images on the wall.
In recent weeks, we had also suffered with smokey air and a lack of bright sun. The day of our shoot was one of a handful of days after the long, smokey August that we could create imagery against partly sunny blue skies. Honestly, I don’t mind a dappled sky. Diffused light is gorgeous against any equine coat. Furthermore, the winds picked up around 4 (as they usually do in the afternoons here in Central Oregon) and that added to the magic of our shoot. (Just look at that beautiful windblown hair on Kenzie in the pics below!)
Even though we pivoted from our original plan, I’m incredibly jazzed by the work we ended up capturing. The limitations presented to us in this shoot were actually gifts.
Field Notes.
Kenzie and Freya waiting off-trail as a barking dog walked by.
Notes for Photographers:
Never do I ever enter a photoshoot session without a clear visual concept and a posing/mood board kept in the back pocket of my jeans.
Exceptional work can be created on the fly, yes — sometimes inspiration just hits and candids end up being the classics we love forever — but I like to build the foundation of a shoot with some pre-determined guidelines, like: location, wardrobe, shot list.
What type of environment are we working with?
What style of clothing matches the vibe of the location, horse, and rider?
What are the poses I/the rider/we want to experiment with and most definitely capture in order to tell our story? We don’t just take pictures, we tell stories.
Even though I have a strong penchant for planning, one of my strengths as a photographer is creative problem solving with unknown variables. As a photographer, one has to be quick with workarounds to challenges that come up in a shoot: maybe the horse doesn’t want to play that day; the weather turns; an essential wardrobe item doesn’t arrive on time in the mail (or the garment is terrible in person despite looking fab in that ad); or, the shoot location just happens to be closed-off by the fire department. We photogs have to be quick on our feet.
Therefore, have a plan but remain open to the magic in the moment. In this shoot with Kenzie and Freya, I was still able to take a few classic candids in the park even though we weren’t able to get the original shots we had planned for. I may not have taken images of Kenzie riding but there are some lovely ground work photos that I think are pretty neat!
