Never Apologize: Phone Photography for the Horse Blogger

took this. on my phone. 

I'm kind of known for going on and on about how it's ok to be an amateur and we shouldn't expect to be professional riders when we just plain aren't.

But that doesn't just apply to riding.

I always think it's kind of funny when people post pictures of their horses and then say "It's just a crappy phone photo".

Hello.

best ears. yes edited.

1) It's 2015. My crappy phone photos are FREAKING AMAZING compared to what a picture from a "real" camera would have been even ten years ago.

2) No one (not even me or Wendy) has a professional photographer follow them around and shoot their every move. Most of our pictures (well, mine) are going to be screen shots from a video or ears pics on my phone or headshots of my horse standing still.

3) You can actually take pretty damn good phone pictures if you put a little work into it.

I mean. I'm not an expert. Or an artist. Or a photographer. I'm not educated about photography and the truth is, aside from Lauren's fantastic series on taking horse pictures, I'm not likely to ever take a class.

But in 2015, the technology is available, accessible, and cheap.

thank you burst mode

90% of the photos on my blog are shot on my phone (iphone 5s). 85% of them are then run through a photo editor (also on my phone) in a sequence that takes under a minute. Here are some (REALLY REALLY) basic guidelines:

1) timing is your friend. You know that awkward moment in the trot where it looks like the horse only has two legs? No one wants to see that. Most phones have a "burst mode" option. On my phone, you literally hold down the camera button and get like 47 photos. Choose the one that doesn't suck. Delete the rest. Magic.

from this

OR. (this is best if someone is taking pictures of you and their timing maybe isn't fantastic or the lighting is less than ideal.) Have them take a video. Pause. Screenshot. Voila! Exactly the moment you wanted.

2) Cropping is your friend. You know how to make a shitty off center picture into reasonably decent blog fodder? CROP THAT BITCH.

to this

Seriously. You don't even need an app for that. Center the horse (more or less) in the frame. Zoom in as much as possible without pixelating the image.

BAM.

Your photo is 75% better already. It took you less than 10 seconds.

emphasis by Redheadlins

Noted: I generally leave a little more space in front of the horse than behind if the horse is going forward. I leave more sky if the sky is pretty or more grass if the footing is nice. If both sky and footing are unremarkable, there's no reason for them to be in the picture. Just highlight what you want to emphasize.

Also noted: instagram likes square pictures. Blogger likes rectangles. On my more motivated days, I make different edits for different mediums. That is not every day.

what my phone looks like before edits

3) Apps are nice. I started with "afterlight" (go to the app store. It's either free or 99 cents). It's a fantastic basic editing program. There are four settings I use all the time--contrast (more or less), saturation (BRIGHT COLORS Y'ALL), brightness (summer in Idaho is a bitch), and... that other one.

There are plenty of other options, but these are just simple, basic things that can drastically improve the visual impact of your photos and take almost no time.

If you're all fancy and cool, you can get pricier apps. I just upgraded to "phototoaster" ($2.99 in the app store) and it has all kinds of bells and whistles and widgets. Part of me knows I'm not technical enough to capitalize on all this, but the other part is determined to make it happen.

kitten <3

If you're on an android platform, I hear rave reviews of Pixlr.

There are roughly a billion photo editing apps out there and you can get REALLY FREAKING FANCY if you want to. I'll admit I got phototoaster after reading this article. While there are some great tips there, that person works a HELL of a lot harder than I do at photo editing. Also they sound like they have a clue about art, which I definitely do not.

yup. phone. 

I mean, if photos aren't your jam, I totally understand. I'll never pretend to have the art chops that Niamh and Lauren do.

But I see no need to apologize for a phone picture. They can be pretty rocking with just a very little amount of work.

Ammy Hour: Meet Sarah!!

It's that time of year again!! Let's celebrate the hard working adult amateurs that are the backbone of equestrians sport. They pay the trainers, the show fees, the board, and the rest of the dues. They are a remarkable set of people with big challenges to overcome. Here's how Sarah from Eventing in Color hands life in the irons:

D'aww

1) You’re at dinner with work colleagues. How do you introduce yourself?
 Hi, I'm Sarah. I have a husband, 2 dogs, and a horse. No, no kids. Yes, I do ride my horse. What color, you ask? He's bay, meaning brown with black legs and hair.


2) But what you really meant to say was this:
Asking me to work late in fall or spring is not going to work for me because there are limited hours of sunlight and I need it to ride!


3) Tell us about your horse: 
Bohemian is an 8-year old thoroughbred ex-racehorse who was used in production of the HBO TV series "Luck". He's tall, dark, and handsome. Very laid back personality and loves to cuddle. He's extremely smart and hard working and a brave yet careful jumper.

And hugs!!

4) How did you meet him/her?
I adopted him in April 2012. We met in a box stall for about 5 minutes, then I signed the paperwork. The first time I saw him move was as he was being walked to the trailer. Yes, I do know how crazy that is.


5) What have you done together?
We've done a fair number of small, local schooling shows, a couple of XC schoolings, and we completed two horse trials this year. Also, lots of cuddling, trail riding, and learning to go bareback.


6) Where are you going together?
We are looking to move up to BN next year, and continue on from there. I'm in no hurry, and have no lofty competition goals. I just want us both to have fun and be safe.

Addicted to cute

7) How do you finance the addiction?
Well, both my husband and I work full-time, and we constantly communicate and re-confirm our financial priorities with each other. The horse is up there with our mortgage and insurance in terms of monthly cost, but both have agreed that enjoying life by spending money on a pet and hobby is worth it for us.


8) How often do you ride?
Generally 4 to 5 rides per week. I ride 3 evenings a week and at least one weekend day.

Plus being sassy

9) What’s the single biggest thing that helps you achieve your goals?
Having modest, attainable goals. Which is a double-edged sword because sometimes you achieve them...but you don't feel very accomplished. But having realistic expectations and focusing on effort rather than results helps us to get the most out of every opportunity.





10) If there was one thing you could say to people getting ready to join the ranks of riding (or re-riding) adults, what would it be?
Firstly, it's not too late to try a new type of riding. I grew up doing saddleseat and switched to eventing as an adult. Getting lessons and learning new disciplines has been a wonderful enrichment to my horsey-life. Secondly, get the support of your significant other from the get-go. It's crucial. Thirdly, don't buy el-cheapo tall boots. Just don't.


11) Bottom Line:
We are so blessed to have horses in our life - be grateful every day for what you have, and be open to the universe bringing you horses or trainers or friends that you didn't expect to have into your life. It's all for a reason. Enjoy!



Many thanks to Sarah for participating!! She and Hemie are a fun team to keep up with and she is very honest about their struggles and successes together. I'm rooting for them!

Are you an adult amateur with a story to share? Do you know someone who should be featured? Contact me through the comments or via and email! I'm always looking for interesting people willing to share how they make it work while balancing horses and all that other stuff we have to do.

Sunshine in the Fall

Thank you to the bloggers who nominated me for the Sunshine award! I've seen them from Eventing in Color, Polka Dot Periodical, My Mojito, A Collection of Madcap Escapes, Pony Express, and Keeping it Loki. All fun blogs, check them out! I know I'm late to the party, but I thought we'd all rather have a fun contest first and do this later.

The sunshine award is for people who 'positively and creatively inspire others in the blogosphere'. The nominee of this award must do the following, thank the person who nominated them, nominate 10 bloggers of their own, answer the 10 questions given to you, post them, and add the Sunshine Award Button to the blog.

All that and he can pose

1. Mares or Geldings?
Geldings. Geldings geldings geldings. I had mares. I did that. I am done. I know there are nice mares out there. I know that a mare will give you everything she's got when she's in the mood for it. You know who else will give you everything they've got, no matter what mood they're in? OTTB GELDINGS. Yeah. All about that.

2. English or Western?
Western is super fun to an extent. It lacks the extensive history and body of work that make the english sport horse world so interesting to me. I have no doubt that they'll eventually catch up, but it will take like 500 years minimum. In the mean time, give me my English saddle and my Xenophon.

Diva and Courage

3. Do you prefer younger or older horses?
I don't like four year olds. All other ages are fine. (Ms Diva is doing her best to convince me that 4 year olds can be nice. She's a black mare though, so you know she's tricksy.)

4. Have you trained a horse from ground zero?
Yes. If I did it again, I would start with a gelding.

5. Do you prefer riding or groundwork?
Hahaha! I hate lunging so much. That said, I absolutely can not stand horses that are rude on the ground, so mine do plenty of groundwork. I'm probably more confident on the ground with a horse, but 99% of the time, I'd rather be in the saddle.

I want to see this face every morning.

6. Do you board your horse or keep him at home?
For now, I board. Eventually, I will have my own place.

7. Do you use all natural things or just commercial stuff (the products you use)?
I'm pretty sure "natural" is code for "doesn't work but costs twice as much".

8. All tacked up or bareback?
See question 1. I ride OTTB geldings with their attendant withers. Saddle please!

9. Equestrian role model?
Meg Kep, Sinead Halpin's groom. She's smart, she's funny, she works her butt off. I'd love to meet her, but then I'd do my awkward "famous person" routine and just make an ass of myself, so it's best we live on separate coasts.



10. What's your one main goal while being in the horse world?
I want to be capable of competently jumping around 3'3" to 3'6" course in the arena and able to run training level eventing. I'm not sure I actually want to go training level, but I want to know that I could, if I was so inclined.

My 10 nominees:

Just a Girl and Her Horse Ruffles keeps a rotating cast of horses and does a variety of awesome things in incredibly scenic places. She's currently dominating the pony club games scene and training a super cool jumper in New Zealand.

Wyvern Oaks Jenj has had a year of ups and downs and then more downs, but she's hard working, a great problem solver, and OMG PADDYBEAR!!! Check him out.

Hopeful Jumpers Jessica is a real vet, fresh out of school. Not only does she take gorgeous pictures of Florida where she lives, but she also has an older, retired TB jumper who reminds me way too much of Cuna.

We Are Flying Solo A perennial favorite of mine. The home of the Original Solo (tm) and a fun blog with lots of down to earth ideas and videos.

A Work in Progress Shannon lives on a farm while raising her kids and training her horses, oh, and battling through a crazy injury that would make most people just sit down and cry. She inspires me.

Poor Woman Showing How do you even introduce Carly and Bobby? She's the most classy profane person I know and I genuinely laugh out loud pretty much every time I read her blog. RIP Red.

Braymere Custom Saddlery A little off the beaten track for me, but Braymere makes custom show tack for model horses. I know we all did that as kids, her her stuff is legit. You have to see it to believe it.

Beast Eventer A newer blog that I picked up, but the story of an adult ammy and her draftie cross making it as eventer. Lots of fun, great attitudes.

A Mile High on Horseback Emily has a lot on her plate and she never slows down. Single mom? OTTB? Work? School? She does it all.

Such a Clever Boy

I seem to have hit the jackpot--not only is my little guy adorable and sweet, with the best post-race brain I have ever seen, he's also happy to mosey around under saddle and chat with friends all day.

Oh, and he's wicked smart.

Just call him "Giraffe Man"

The only drawback is that I really don't care to mosey that much. I mean, chatting with friends is fun, but when we're working, I like a ZOOM ZOOM engine. When redheadlins rode him last week, she was able to demonstrate his very-functional go button. She also pointed out that he went in a shadow roll and rings (martingale) for a reason on the track.

Look who can flex his poll after all

Ok. Time for phase two. C-rage took the weekend off while I attended to "real life", and we started fresh on Monday.

On the lunge. In side reins.

I really don't believe in lunging as a form of exercise--I see only negatives to running horses around in tiny circles for extended periods of time. That said, I do think all horses should be able to lunge in case the need comes up, and I think this counted as a legitimate need.

We took it easy. First I let him warm up W/T both directions. Then I added the outside rein W/T both directions. When he settled and was able to trot through his sticky corner, I added in both reins both directions.

Best shot I could get while trying to keep him going

I kept the side reins loose. I never asked him to canter because he's still finding his balance on smaller circles and there's no reason to stress him out about the whole thing. We were done in about 20 minutes.

I do think that asking him to move in a different way and learn new concepts is challenging (and I am apparently busy this month), so he got the next day off to recover and process.

Which brings us to Wednesday.

Demonstrating his lovely walk

Given that his last two sessions were rather mind bending, I was curious to see how he'd do. We walked around for a good 10-15 minutes, seeing the sights and chatting. He's really good about dropping his poll and moving forward at the walk.

Then it was time to find out just how much progress we'd made. I asked for the trot. . .

Blurry and adorable

And off we went! Big forward stride, covering ground. After a few strides, he started to relax and drop his poll.

It's obviously a newer concept for him, but he was experimenting with letting his neck stretch forward and even a little downward. He definitely improved as we rode, and offered his softest, easiest canter to date.

An excellent shot until the jump got in the way

This is what impresses me about him. The side reins were a very low-drama introduction. He's literally spent less than 20 minutes in them in his entire life, and it definitely changed his way of going under saddle. He's able to learn new skills and connect the dots with an incredibly minimal education.

White wraps, black bells.

I don't drill him. He's literally going about 4 days a week, maybe 20 minutes a day. I can leave him in the cross ties, try things on, adjust them, put them back on, pull his mane, screw with him, and he's rock solid. His under saddle work progresses in leaps and bounds even with very minimal riding. He's taking to the sport horse world like a fish to water.

And I love it.

Honesty and Horsemanship

By C.W. Anderson

Growing up, I had more access to books than real horses, so I spent hours and hours reading. I lived and breathed C.W. Anderson and Marguerite Henry and a host of others. From them, I gleaned some of my most basic riding principles: "Always the rider, never the horse." I internalized it so deeply that I didn't even realize how much it affected me.

When I was struggling with Izzy, I kept beating myself up. "I'm not good enough", "I'm just bad at this", "I'm too out of shape", whatever. It had to be my fault, every time. Part of selling her was letting go of that and realizing that while I have my shortcomings, she also had hers. It wasn't that I needed to just get better--it was that it was never going to work for us.

Cuna really was the one who let me see that I actually can ride and I've mostly moved on. As I was reading today, I ran across a quote that just resonated with me.

"One of the most common mistakes I see riders make is to accept total responsibility for a refusal. It is the rider’s responsibility to remember the course, compete at the ­appropriate level for the horse’s experience and training, approach in a rhythm and not ask for impossible angles or efforts. The rest is up to the horse. The horse’s response cannot be to say to his rider, “You blinked. I can’t jump when you blink. I can’t work under these conditions!” Oh, no. The fact that you needed three-sixteenths of an ounce more pressure with your reins or that your heels could have been down ­another five ­degrees has nothing to do with it. He knows how to jump. You arranged an ­obstacle in his path, and his job is to jump—first time, every time." 
-god (aka Jimmy Wofford), whole article here.

The stunning Izzy mare

I realize there is a balance here. The horse must be taught, but to acknowledge that the horse also has responsibilities is just freeing for me. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with that, "Is it me? What am I doing wrong?" when the truth is, there are two sides to every discussion.

I'm going to stand on my happy horse soapbox for a minute here and just say that this sport is entirely too dangerous and expensive to not love every second. Really. Especially if you're an ammy owner type who just has one horse to ride most of the time, it's not worth it to fight it out with an animal you don't enjoy. 

Cutest horse ever. Even lets me dress him.

You doubt? I am all mushy goo goo over a certain 18 year old OTTB gelding who is the sweetest, crankiest, most mean bastard horse I know. And I'm not a mushy goo goo person. Just ask Rinsie.

Here's what I'm trying to say: we need to be the best riders we can be and not blame our horses for out shortcomings. We need to couple that with an understanding that horses aren't perfect. They have personalities. Not every horse is a match for every rider and that is ok.

Cuna is the walking definition of a schoolmaster and he understands his job. The reason I can jump a giant oxer with no reins on him is because he knows that if he's pointed at a fence, he is to jump it. When I make mistakes, he points them out to me, but he's never mean, dirty, or scary. Because Cuna holds up his end of the deal, CW Anderson's mantra rings true: it is always me, never him (usually).

If you're struggling with a horse that tests your limits as a rider and that you don't look forward to seeing every.single.day, consider that maybe, just maybe, you should look for your very own Cuna instead of blame yourself for what just won't work.

I know I'm not the only one out there who has worked through this and I love connecting with other people on this issue. Anyone else have a Cuna? Think they need one? Walking through the process now?

PS Original Cuna is not available.

Starting With a Little History

Isadora, "Izzy", is my first horse to really own. She's the first daughter of the lovely TB mare I leased for years and showed in everything. Her father is the Oldenburg Stallion Impressario. I acquired her this February, the result of a trade. I board her out with her mother, as I don't have the space to keep her at home.

She's 6 this summer, but you wouldn't know it be looking at her. Her first owner took her away to a different barn and visited her twice in 5 years. That is actually a blessing in diguise. The mare did receive some training by a cowboy in this period, but it was only 60 days when she was 4 or 5 and she was never taken out of a roundpen.

When her former owner brought her back to our barn, Izzy began to learn some really fun little games. She would rear and strike and act crazy, and her owner would scream and run away. Many of our fellow boarders were introduced to her by helping her owner chase her around the barn as she spooked and bolted. Riding was out of the question, as was lunging, leading, picking up her feet, or anything else she didn't want you to do.

This was the state I acquired her in. I had seen her and admired her, but never attempted to handle her in any way. I didn't want to bond with someone else's horse.

On Sunday, February 1st, I traded Izzy's owner a baby horse I had rights to in exchange for this supposed train wreck of a horse. It was an incredible day.

The first few months I had her were mostly filled with hours of somewhat frustrating groundwork. She had to be convinced, gently but firmly, that she had to do things my way. No more rearing and bolting; now she had to go to work. I finally began to ride her in April, after teaching her to stand, pick up her feet, load in a trailer, lunge quietly, and accept both saddle and bridle without fussing.

I began to ride her more seriously (more than just mounting and dismounting) in May, after school got out. We've taken everything very slowly, because we're building the foundation that all her future training will be built on. Now, however, we're finally ready to start moving forward.