Earlier this year, Kat booked in an equine photo session to capture some perfect moments with her senior horse Christo, and also her charming pony Buddy.

We managed to squeeze both a black background photoshoot and a horse & rider photoshoot in before Kat and her boys moved down to the picturesque South Coast of NSW.

Kat and Christo have been through a lot together in their six years – he’s always been there for her. She’d had some concerns about his health, and while he fortunately soldiered through, Kat now has these memories to enjoy forever more.

A patient, easy-going, gentle sort, Christo’s love for Kat was evident from the very first moment I met him! This is exactly the sort of connection I love to capture between my clients and their horses. Although Christo was the star of the show, Kat wanted to include her cheeky little arabian riding pony Buddy as well! Buddy is a lover of people and horses, and an absolute poser. In other words, a photographer’s dream!

Christo, being an older gentleman, has a bit of a sway back, so I took on the challenge of posing him intentionally, and playing with photographing from different heights, to show him off to his best. Christo was beautifully obliging for all our poking and prodding to get him into the right position.

Not to be outdone, Buddy was the perfect poser, giving us some of the cutest ears I’ve ever seen.

Kat had the right idea from the get-go, enlisting a friend to help groom, hold horses and act as emotional support through the process. While I always bring an assistant to help get ears up, it can get a little complicated with two horses or when you want to use the naked halter (a thin halter edited off in Photoshop). Because it looks silly if your hands are grabbing something which isn’t there, the extra person is sorely needed in addition to our ear-getter!

I arrived at their agistment in Maraylya (Sydney Horse Express) on one of the rare sunny afternoons we’ve had last summer. In fact, it was stinking hot and humid! The site we’d scoped out for the shoot was a long trek across the paddock, over a small creek and up a steep hill so I was glad I’d thought to bring plenty of water and a set of gumboots. Luckily, many hands make light work and soon enough we had Kat, both horses, and all the outfits on location.

Kat did an on-site costume change to get into her first outfit and unwind her hair. She’d used a tiktok trick to get some perfect curls and it worked amazingly!

While Buddy wasn’t as much of a fan as he’d been at our black background session, we still captured some beautiful memories of the two of them.

Christo was very obliging and we captured some sweet moments of him and Kat just hanging out together, like they normally do.

We even managed to wrangle both boys into some photos, giving Kat some gorgeous shots of her whole family.

Then as the sun was starting to sink into the clouds, we boosted Kat onto Christo and she took him for a cruisy canter up the slope. Set against the red of the sun sinking into the trees, it was a perfect moment. I love capturing these memories and creating products that will last forever.

Check out more images from the session below:

And of course, the artwork…

Kat was kind enough to film an unboxing video for me when she received her album, and her reaction just blew me away! Check it out below – thank you Kat for braving the camera to share it with me!

What about you?

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