princess_firedance-20200725-097-Edit My neighbor came to me some time ago and asked if I had any horse pictures she could purchase to hang up on her wall. I did not, but that immediately made me think of my friend Lauren. Lauren and I have been friends for many years and she even helped me with a last-minute fashion shoot once by being a very patient model. She absolutely killed it, by the way.

Anyway, back to horses, Lauren works with horses and has her own horse. If anyone could help me get a picture of a horse, it was Lauren! I called her about the idea and she was delighted to get some pictures of her horse, Princess Firedance. She said that Princess has a degenerative disease on her legs which makes it difficult to move around. Lauren said she did not know how much longer Princess would be around so she really wanted to get the pictures. This all happened in late 2019 and, unfortunately, with family obligations and vacations at the end of the year, we could not schedule a time in 2019 to do the shoot. The beginning of 2020 was also busy for me and then COVID-19 happened. Things were not looking promising.

Finally, in July, I was able to get out to the most remote part of "middle-of-nowhere" where Lauren lives to get the pictures. At this point, the shoot is more for Lauren than for me since my neighbor had long since found her picture of a horse and hung it up on her wall. This is important to me because I like to have a clear purpose for making pictures. I find that it helps the creativity flow if you know the direction you are going.

princess_firedance-20200725-057 I arrived and started scouting her 5+ acre property for good locations. I wanted to do the main shots right around sunset if the weather would permit. There were lots of great places to shoot, so I made a quick plan and decided to start at the stable and then move my way back to the pasture where we would have the best chance of getting the sunset picture.

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From the stable, we moved to this area covered by trees and made some killer shots of Lauren and her horse. I mean, can you feel the love here or what!

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Princess got her own portrait here too. 

princess_firedance-20200725-075-Edit We moved on to the pasture as the sun was going down, but unfortunately, the weather did not help out and huge clouds were blocking the golden glow of sunset. We did get some sunlight peeking through in this beautiful area of the property that was almost like a tunnel of vegetation. This was my favorite shot of Princess.

princess_firedance-20200725-131-Edit I made sure to also include Princess' BFF. This tiny little horse had to go everywhere we went because Lauren said Princess gets stressed if he's not around. He is Princess's emotional support animal.

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I also got this great "headshot" of Princess, which I think makes a great black & white picture.

princess_firedance-20200725-270-Edit As the light of the day went down below the horizon, I got one last shot of Lauren with her animal friends.

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Thanks, Lauren, for the opportunity, the hospitality, and the pizza. The ant bites have already healed by the way.