Here are answers to common questions about a session.

How will you customize my session? During our call to set up your session, it’s ideal if you’re sitting in front of a computer. I’ll ask you to tell me about your horse, your story, and what you most enjoy doing together. We’ll talk about the best session to create the art you’d like most to savor your connection or special attributes of your horse. I’ll email you a pdf of your artwork choices, answer questions about collection discounts and we can discuss what appeals most to you as I show you online examples of wall portrait and album products, discussing the advantages of various shapes and sizes. We can also go over slideshow options. This discussion about how you envision the form your art will take determines my strategy for shooting our session together.

What should I wear? Solid colors are best for making you and your horse the main attraction. Patterns, logos and any words on shirts and hats become distracting and cause people to regret wearing them later. Colors are much better than black or white for keeping exposures even across the photo.

What happens first? When we meet at your session location, we’ll go over the best locations in the area together and plan where you’ll do your activities with your horse. You’ll sign a photo release and we’ll go get your horse and I’ll start photographing! For the Journal and Storybook sessions especially, I like to capture the way your horse greets you and your grooming time together, so there’s no need to get your horse out of a stall or pasture and groomed before I get there!

Will you tell me what to do? Not really. I’ll be there mostly as a fly on the wall, looking for the moments of connection between you and artistic aspects in the tack, barn, surroundings, interactions and expressions. If I see a particularly great angle or magical light while shooting, I may offer a little direction, but on the whole, I’ll want whatever you’re doing together to be comfortable and natural for you. Don’t worry about me or feel you need to look at the camera. Most of the time I’ll be far enough away with a telephoto lens that it will be easy to forget about me.

How much can we do together? With the Journal and Storybook sessions, you can often fit in everything from grooming to ground work to riding to untacking and even a little walk before putting your horse away. With the Intro and Poetry sessions, you might choose one or two of those activities and we can see where it leads us. Everyone’s different as to what they love doing with their horse and how long it takes so there’s no set agenda. The important thing is to do what’s easy and fun for both of you. Beautiful images can come out of simply sharing space in a pasture together with no agenda—just moment to moment.

When can I see the images? I’ll upload your images to your online gallery within 1 week of your session. Please let me know if you’d like the gallery to be public, hidden, or password protected to allow select individuals to see it. I’ll email you when your gallery is ready so you can select your favorites.

How long do I have to order? Once your gallery is online, you’ll have 2 weeks to choose your favorites and place your order with a 50% deposit of the order amount. The balance isn’t due until delivery of your artwork within 2-4 weeks of ordering, depending on products chosen. All images that you choose will be carefully and beautifully enhanced for color and exposure perfection.

Can you retouch things? In addition to spotting and minor touch ups which are free, some things can be a little more radically changed or removed entirely like dangling leads and background distractions. Each photo is different, so please ask and I will estimate a retouching cost for you. Some are surprisingly quick and easy, others not so much.