Chelsey and I met up again at Ramaker Stables in Leader, Texas. We had about an hour to knock out some different looks and get a 17 hand horse named Bentley involved. No problem.

We started in the Small Barn, not as new as the Big Barn, but more colorful and possessing more character. I was thinking something along the lines of images out of Dover Saddlery, but prettier.

Tried working with some backlit/Ezybox combo’s, but they weren’t working for me. Ended up with an over/under lighting scheme to bring some beauty and contrast to Chelsey.

Over Under Contrast

This image has a Lastolie 24 inch Ezybox (my favorite) on top, with a big reversible umbrella on the bottom, both are off to one side slightly.

Remember in part one, when I said there were no clouds. That changed for the better.

The barn was fun, but then the sky did me a favor and went wild with clouds and color. Let’s ditch inside the barn and go crazy with the sky’s.

Fun with Skies

What is more fun that a senior and great skies? A senior, her horse and great skies!

Bentley and Chelsey

Thanks again to Chelsey for being a wonderful model.

See all of the images here

–JB

Thursday Night I headed out to Ramaker Stables to watch my wife ride her new horse Gus. That and I had some ideas of things I wanted to try with lights.
Basically, I wanted to treat the Horses like I usually light my Human Athletes. Give them edge and contrast, while bringing out the ambient exposure if its good.
These images are pretty much how they looked on the back of the LCD. For the Black horses, I added some fill. The White horse, toned down the bright whites just a bit.

The three light are setup in a basic triangle, two behind the horses and one in front around the arena. This gave me different shooting slots to get new angles without having to reset the lights. I have found this to be good way of shooting sports action when you know the general location the athlete will move through. In this case a 20 foot square.

Honestly, I didn’t plan on having a spectacular sunset backdrop, but I was prepared in case one happened. I had maybe 8 minutes of this light to work with. The rest of the night, the background/ambient was not so pretty.

Another example to always bring your camera, and in this case, your lights too.

The rest of the purchase gallery is here

–JB