This morning I went out and did some behind the scenes work at a farm that does some spelling and pre-training services here in my local area.  It was about a 40 minute drive which was a breeze.  They had a nice little horse relaxing in the paddock too, who I caught up with and had a cuddle with.  I will tell you that he remembers me.   I think it's more fun having company on my photoshoots. I like having someone who can help me make the horse's head twist and turn the way I want it too.   Still.. When company takes the form of my children there is more negotiation being entered into than I prefer however I'm sure The Love Horse missed "The Lovely Jessica" who helped on props last time.  She's great with the horses and they respond to her. She also likes it because it is one of her pocket money jobs and makes her feel on a level with Heath, because he earns pocket money by mowing the lawn. Incidentally, on the subject of negotiation, I c...

I often wonder how much better and easier my shoots would be if I had the benefit of a regular 2nd person.  Clearly that person would have to be fabulous, that's a given.  The benefits are clear cut.  On raceday and on farm shoots for example if the person you have with you can actually shoot you can cover the event in question from 2 completely different angles and using 2 different focal lengths.   Trainers are busy and impatient people.  They are prone to begin tapping their watch impatiently in about 90 seconds.  In shoots such as these, which is what I was doing this morning, having someone fabulous who will move a light stand about (or stop it from sailing wildly into the air on a windy day!), or holding a reflector up, and/or playing the role of "The Lovely....." (aka my fabulous person on props), it would be a godsend too.  I know it would make the images wildly better too, particularly if the person instinctively knew where and how ...

I recently tried watching a little bit of Gone With The Wind.  It's always problematic what I put on at night.  I always have trouble getting Heath to sleep and to STAY-IN-BED and if he hears something that is vaguely interesting to him, up he pops like a rat up a drainpipe...  I put Gone With The Wind on, which I always liked, and of course when the Civil War scenes came on (I might mention that this is all AFTER 10pm!!!!) out he comes...  And so I switch it off again.  I liked Scarlett though.  She was this tough, beautiful, determined and feisty woman.  Ok, so she had terrible taste in men..  I guess we can all be a little guilty of that can't we though?  I didn't ever understand how she was so besotted with the drip that was Ashley Wilkes when she had the horse riding and ever so slightly Bad-Ass Rhett Butler courting her.  And he was actually in love with her too, because he loved her spirit.  I always thought that this was on...

Maybe I should stop watching Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" , and stop watching romantic films altogether....    I'm not sure they do me much good! "A snap to find the one single person in the world who fills your heart with joy"   "Dream, when you're feeling blue.   Dream, that's the thing to do....  Just...  watch the smoke rings rise in the air...  You'll find your share...  of memories there, so....  Dream, when the day is through..   Dream, and they might come true...  Things are never as bad as they seem, so, dream, dream, dream....."  My day has been filled with horses today before picking the kids up from school.  That's not such a bad day.  I rode Archie this morning, and I hopped on Lyn's other horse Boz as well.  He's a little bit more established than Archie is, and it made me long for Freelance just a little bit.  Archie is coming along beautifully, but he's no...