Photography - Passion and Dreams.
I like to joke that I’ve been a photographer since I could hold a camera and, well…that’s actually pretty true. As a child whenever we would take trips, we’d all load up photos on our disposable cameras. My mother eventually purchased a small digital camera which I (sorry mom) pretty quickly usurped to photograph our pets, garden, and everything in-between. It didn’t matter that the images lacked quality or *heh* any focus whatsoever, because I just loved the act of capturing little moments.
I’ve always been an entrepreneur and began dog walking and training in my neighborhood and managed to save up enough money to buy my first high quality digital camera! Well…it was high quality as far as I was concerned and for the price, this was around 2008 and the options weren’t all that varied yet. But I was determined! I used that little camera for YEARS to photograph friends, family, events, animals, and any horse I could find! My family would tell me that I’d be a photographer someday and should focus on that. I didn’t take it that serious yet, but I supposed that was a spoiler alert for my own future!
A couple years later I had saved up enough funds to purchase my first proper Sony DSLR, and another couple of years I purchased a nice lens to go with it. Due to the quality still not being quite what I had hoped, I developed very strong photoshop skills to help bring my images to life. This, and my work as an artist, brought forth in later years my signature style and detail within my black background photoshoots.
I began taking my photography seriously around 2012 and ever since then have slowly worked on upgrading my gear and developing my craft. Now I have had the pleasure of photographing people and horses all across Florida and many other states, I have refined my business and now enjoy photographing some of the most beautiful horses and people across the sunshine state and beyond, and I’d love to add you to that list!
A Photographer Who Knows
I won’t lie to you, there’s definitely a keen advantage to being a “horse person” when photographing horses. We know what to look for in the right image because we’ve spent years trying to get those same shots of our own ponies. That and having the innate knowledge on handling horses and being comfortable around them is a must, in my book.
See that handsome grey gelding in the next photo? That was Pilot. He was my heart horse, that’s an image of him and I circa 2014. He passed away suddenly to colic, at a very young age of 6, the next year in 2015. I was that little girl that didn’t come from a country home, no farm to work on, we were a suburban family with suburban jobs but little Heidi…she had an intense passion for horses (stemming from mom and grandma). I was determined to one day own one and that’s how I came to have Pilot. He changed my life for the better and took care of me like no one else. I carry on my business in his legacy. He was, after all, my favorite model.
Losing him helped me realize another thing…how short time is and how much those pictures suddenly mean when they’re no longer by your side. It’s my goal to not just take pretty pictures, but to capture your horse’s beauty and personality, to capture the very soul of their being in the form of a beautiful physical memory so that you can cherish those moments forever. Because I know all too well that one day, God takes them back, and all we have are those precious memories and photographs.
