Thursday 24 July 2008

I know I have been remiss for five days and not posted, lots happening here and I have been up and down like a yoyo. The pictures today are from a few evenings ago, I wa trying to use the soft evening light for a project so these were some of the results, Lori my filly and a picture of Lori and Dee and a whole bunch of legs.

The day before yesterday I rode Cayenne out in the pasture down the road again and I had her cantering and trotting which was exhilerating, she was such a good girl. Richard lives just down the road and he saw us so he came over and then he also had a ride on her, this is a man who has only been on a horse twice ever, and this little filly was as good as gold for him. I hope I find the right home for her she is a star.

Yesterday we had a beautiful day, it stayed in the 70s low 80s but it made it ploeasant outside, so I took advantage and got a few things done that needed doing (still have a list a mile long). I moved the gate from the field that we have replanted and aren't using, to put on the doorway at the bottom of the barn because I was tired of hauling a panel to cover the doorway every time I wanted to keep the horses out of the barn. Of course I am all thumbs and tools are not my best friend so it took three times as long as it should have for someone who knows what they are doing!!

Then I had to move some more panels inside to make the area for the storage of sawdust secure as I am stockpiling it for winter. If the horses can get access to the pile they WILL climb up it and spread it far and wide and roll in it and then it is spread out and I can't use it!! I also had to go down the road to the pasture we are using to fix the gate there as it was falling off its one hinge. This pasture and house is on State Road 3 one of the busier roads in the state so that is my one worry, a horse getting out onto the highway. Heaven forbid.

To cap that exciting day off, I then reversed the trailer into the barn after moving all the barriers out of the way and unloaded a load of sawdust!!!! By that time the shower was more than calling because it was after 9pm! Hey I missed Big Brother!!!!

I have a Welsh Pony and Welsh Cob show this weekend In Rochester which is about 80 - 90 miles north of us. Lisa has agreed to come with me to help me which I am very grateful for as it is a show that I cant shoot and handle the downloading etc. on my own, I need help with the computer side of things. We will be leaving on Friday evening because this show starts at 8am and I dont want to have to drive 2 hours before the start on Saturday LOL.

So if you dont see me again before then, have a wonderful weekend everyone and I am sure we will both have some pics to post on Monday when we have recovered.

((((Hugs))))

Lori

I Love Your Blog Award & Puppies

I have received numerous blogging awards over the past 17 months of blogging and have never gotten around to following them through, and especially when I have got so far behind in my blog reading and commenting and even posting. I am sorry for that because each one has been special to me from my new blogging buddies.

I recently found two wonderful blogs that I try to visit as often as possible which are actually written by the same person but the author of these blogs, Strawberry Lane, has offered me this "I Love Your Blog" award for which I thank her. I love your stories and humour and it makes for a pleasant place to have a giggle and a relaxing stop over. Her other blog is Simply Marvelous and is a mine of information and interesting stories.

So basically I am turning over a new leaf or trying to and get a blog posted most days like I did last year, there is always something going on here, and I have found it quite a useful way to keep a diary of sorts. If and when I get back to my routine of reading and writing I will pass this award on to three people but at the moment there are so many that I like I cant choose!
(click on picture to enlarge)
(click on the picture to enlarge)
At the horse shows I always find that people will have their dogs and over the years they have made for interesting subjects to shoot. I had the pleasure of meeting this little guy this weekend, he is owned by Alex's family and the dalmation too. I still have more to edit so there are a few more but thought 2 for today would be enough LOL.

Still havent unloaded the sawdust!!! So that is on the top of the priority list for tomorrow. Larry has got all of the pictures up on my website ProPhoto By Lori under the subheading Shows. Most of them are last years pictures still but we will be taking those down and making space for this years'. My next show is another of my favorites which is another stay overnight in Rochester for the Heartland Welsh Pony and Cob Club, (they dont have a website that I know of but the person who originally contracted me for this show was Lisa Brezina of Castleberry Welsh Cobs and Sport Ponies where you will see many of my photos LOL), which I have been shooting for since they initiated their show in 2004, so this will be my 5th time shooting for them.

Well that is about it for today, I promise I will take up on my stories of my travels sometime soon, I just can't find any photos, I had scanned very few before coming over to USA and the negatives and slides are in UK with my "friend" who is avoiding me for some unknown reason. Hopefully one day I will get my hands on them again.

Have a great Wednesday all. (((((Hugs))))

Lori

xx

After the Horse Show

Photographing my first show of the year is over and I have a few weeks before the next one. This was a Pinto show (Spotted horses and ponies) and I have been doing their photographs for the past 6 years. They usually have 3 shows a year. While I was wandering around these tulips caught my eye, I thought they were nice and bright so here they are, I have never seen varigated colors in tulips.

Usually I would travel home on the Saturday evening as this is only 60 odd miles from home but with the gas situation being so bad, nearly $4 a gallon one of the members Bobbie Anne (BA) and her husband Nick put me up for the night for which I was very grateful. The picture below is of the pony Little Bit who was bought by the little girl next to him with her own money, Alex, and her great aunt BA. Little Bit has started rolling barrels around in the field at home so we were trying to capture a pic of him doing it here after the barreracing classes on Saturday evening. This pony is amazing, he pulls a cart, jumps while being lead on a lead rope and competes in just about all the events that the Minis do and very well. I am always looking for unusual "things" at the shows and love spurs. Although I have never seen any of those really ornate ones that some of the people wear here is one from this weekend and the second one including the horses, head LOL, have to have at least one picture of a horse!!
I love the ornate toolwork on the saddles and bridles and the bling that goes with the western riding classes both on the horses tack and the people. The outfits that the riders wear are as important as how the horse performs and looks.
Saturday started off raining, I arrived a bit late and missed a few classes but it was indoors so the pictures werent going to be wonderful anyway, I tried my best under the conditions. In the afternoon the sun had come out and they had managed to get the arena dry enough for us to be able to walk in it. It was quite warm but very blustery which was pretty unpleasant to say the least because the maple trees are just dropping their seed pods and we were bombardered with those all weekend.

We had an inch of rain on Saturday night which put the arena back where we started but we managed the first classes in the makeup arena which was pretty dry. They were the jumping in hand classes and trail. Then we moved into the large arena for the ridden classes. It was absolutely freezing the whole day. The wind had an arctic chill and I was wearing two shirts and my jacket which thank heavens I took with me and my hands were still freezing. When the wind dropped it was pretty pleasant but it blustered both days unfortunately.

I was pretty tired by the time I had driven home and fell asleep at 8pm and woke up at 8am this morning!!! So that is my weekend in a nutshell. Larry is busy getting all the photos up on my website because I was on my own there so couldnt do the sales too. I gave everyone cards with the website address and they can see their proofs there. It started to work pretty well with the shows last year.

I am catching up on blogs and mail and am just going out to start feeding the horses their dinner.
Hope you all had a great weekend ((((Hugs))))

Lori
xx

A Bad Day Turned Good

I started the day out feeling a bit blaaaahhhh again LOL, but then got together with a friend I have met recently who likes photography too and we went down to the elk farm to see what was there. I have only ever been there in February when it was cold and the grass brown and snow on the ground.

They don't have many animals anymore and we could only see this one small herd of young ones. There were 3 white ones (or it might have been 4) and I thought it looked so cute the way their antlers were starting to grow.
They were a little wary when we first drove up and got up and moved away but we crouched by the fence and they started getting curious and coming closer. Wish I had a 1.4x converter for my 70-200 2.8 LOL.
So that is all I have to report today. Am getting ready to close everything down and start packing for the horse show as I will be away from early tomorrow morning until late Sunday. It is one of my favorite shows, the Indiana Pinto Assoc. and I have been shooting for them for the past 6 years now I think it is (this will be the 6th).
Just hope I dont forget anything, it is going to be a bithard not having Larry there to help me with the computer side of things while I am shooting, but I have cards to hand out with my website on it and hope that if I dont get the time to do anything at the show, I will at least get some online sales. It is about 1 and a half hours drive from here (70 miles) and I will be staying with one of the members overnight so that I dont have to drive back and forth.

I hope you all have a great weekend, will be thinking of you all. Hopefully I will have some nice pictures to bring back with me, they are predicting scattered showers all weekend and this is an outdoor arena.

(((((Hugs)))))

Lori

1 October 2007

Well I missed three days in the end. We left at about 1.30 on Friday but still got caught in a traffic jam while trying to go around Indianapolis and ended up taking 6 hours instead of 3, crazy traffic. The show was hectic but the weather was wonderful to us, last year this show was held indoors because it rained the whole day on Saturday. Got a bit hot in the afternoons, mid 80s but bearable. We only left Edinburg at 7pm on Sunday night and it was 10pm before we got home, I was exhausted and actually still am.

Todays pictures of of one of the Trail classes. I think I would like to do this with my filly if I ever get to ride her and compete. It is done in the western style of riding, sont be familiar to anyone outside USA. The horses have low head carriages and very slow walks, trots and canters. Most of the riders ride with only one hand on the reins (there are a few bridles which are exceptions) so all of the movements are done with leg pressure (most use spurs - not those mean old cowboy ones LOL) and rein pressure on the neck and of course weight adjustment. The first picture is of the horse going over the "wooden bridge". This is a pretty well times shot, with the rider giving the reins so the horse can put its head down and watch what it is doing as it steps up onto the bridge. The other three are a series where the rider has to open the gate (in this case a chain and rope), and while holding on to the rope with the same hand, back your horse up, pivot your horse through the gate opening, back the horse up on the other side and replace the chain to close the "gate" without letting go. The trail course consists of all sorts of other obstacles such as trotting poles which you have to trot over (they are evenly spaced laying flat on the ground) them without touching the poles. Another obstacle would be a four sided square made up of 8 foot poles which you have to trot into and halt in side, then do a 360 degree pivot without touching the poles and walk back out of the box. Lots of others which I wont go into or It will take all night LOL.

I only have a few print orders to mail out as we managed to get most of them printed at the show and the customers took them home with them. I have a few editing jobs in the process still from previous shows which are going to mean replacing bad backgrounds with nice ones and are a lot more time consuming so I do those here at home.

So guys I am still in the land of the living, am going to get an early night so that I can get started early tomorrow. I hope you all had a great weekend.

((((((((Hugs))))))))

Lori
xx

27September 2007

This is going to be a quickie again. I have my last horse show this weekend which is a relief because it has been such a dreadful year in general. I thought I would post a copy of the business card that I created using the Brat's photo. An artist in Canada named Lesley White bought the rights to paint an original 24" x 18" oil of this picture which you can see here on her website http://www.oilsbylesley.com/westernoils3.htm names First Taste of Spring just click on the picture to see a bigger version. She has also used two other photos of mine as references, they are on http://www.oilsbylesley.com/westernoils2.htm and are called Lookin' Back and Unbridled Spirit. She does a beautiful job. The Lookin' Back one sold at the exhibition she had it at a few days after completing it and she had 3 people fighting over who would buy it!!! She said she has never had that happen to her before, made me feel good I have to say.

I dont know if I will get a post in tomorrow before I pack everything up because we are going to try to leave early afternoon as we have to drive around Indianapolis and dont want to hit the rush hour traffic. It is about a two and a half hour drive. The show is in Edinburgh. We will come home on Sunday night after the show finishes.

I rode Dosie again today and he did a fabulous job, he really is nice to ride and I think is warming up to me a bit more. I also taught Blaze a little more about lunging. Not too much because he is still young but enough to give him a bit of exercise, he has a bit of a gut on him, has always had one (that can usually be caused by worms but he has been regularly wormed and has been potbellied since he was little LOL).

Well guys, thanks all for your regular visits, hopefully after this show I can get some stuff done that has been neglected, mainly my regular blogging buddies who I have been grateful for. ((((Hugs)))) and if I dont check in until Sunday, see y'all Sunday and have a great weekend.

Lori
xx