Hmm, May of this year...I guess this qualifies as delinquent blogging. I'd like to blame my hatred of writing, lack of people skills, and pretty much anything else I can think of but the truth is it comes down to pure laziness. Its been a great year for photography, with a pile of new doors opening up for me, and I've chosen not to get past FB posting to talk about it. Bad me...
This evening finds me back at Spruce Meadows, day one in the books with a media lunch and general networking opportunities. The weather was pretty drag and overcast today, but since no-one was competing, the loss was minimal.
I took the opportunity to photograph a subject that I find fascinating for no apparent reason-the role of cell phones in todays equestrian world. Go to any horse show, gymkhana, rodeo, dressage show, you name it, and you'll find riders on their phones while with their horses. Distracted riding?
Possibly. A friend of mine told me that a clinic she attended promoted the use of cell phones/smart phones by the riders as it apparently taught the horse patience. I'm not sure if I agree with that, but I'm also old, and may have a somewhat jaded view on what is acceptable anymore.
So, I found it interesting to see my friend and uber-competitor Lynn J. making a practice run with Ernie today, and wouldn't you know it, she had her phone bolted to her ear for the majority of it!!

At least Ernie seems happy!
So, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for more examples. Shortly After this, I found last year's Grand Prix champion Olivier Philippaerts sitting by the fountain near the F.E.I. barn. Check this out...

Good thing he's got a groom to deal with all the pesky annoyances of show jumping!!
Anyway, call it an obsession or whatever you like, I find it to be an interesting twist to today's modern horse person, and I plan to get more shots depicting this in the future.
It's a great week to be back at Spruce Meadows, more to follow!

So, apparently I haven't posted in quite some time! It took a while to come down from the high that was the Masters, and then it got into winter work, holidays, more work and before you know it, its May and you've not done anything on your blog since, well, the Masters.( Sometimes, you just don't have anything to say, let alone write about, and I think I just ran out of words about Horses)
Speaking of horses, or at least horsepower in general, I think its only fair to warn you that this year, I plan to stray from horse shows somewhat, and explore a few different sports with my camera.
Primarily, I've gotten involved the the Central Alberta Raceways, and will be covering all of their events this year (hopefully, with the help of a few-or a lot of my photographer friends like Carmen Williams and Darwin Mulligan who are seasoned veterans at this sort of shooting!!)
Armed with a new ambition to shoot, some new gear and some absolutely fantastic weather, we spent the day down at the Rimbey racetrack, ushering in the 2013 race season with the spring Mud Bogs.
Now, being patch trash such as I am, I typically make it a habit of staying as far away from mud as I can(just because my truck is lifted with 37"tires does not mean I go around testing its ability to crawl out of a swamp...) but I must admit I was intrigued by the sounds and sights of warm-up around the facility.
I won't go into great detail-lets just say it was a great afternoon for weather, performance and friendship. i'll provide a few pictures here as an example of what we captured today. looking forward to tomorrow when the real racing starts!



This was one of the last shots of the day, and once the qualifying was done, there was a little fun time for everyone. With the way the light was, and the dust, we were actually getting nicer shots of the drivers returning for another run!!

I will never be this happy about being covered in mud.....

 Man, some of these quads can really move!

 We were afraid this guy was out for the duration after he blew something up on his first run, but he was back by round 2, and boy, could he move!!!

"I was this close...!!!"

Never saw a Razer have to get pulled out...

 My mentor Darwin was trying to teach (re-teach??) the art of panning with a slow shutter to create the illusion of speed.

 I had this exact truck growing up... it was somewhat less cool back then.

So, the final run tomorrow, and as long as the weather holds, we plan on catching some even better shots. My Oldest is coming to join me(which means I'll lose my 5D mmiii, sigh...) but she'll be catching some video with it as well, so I guess some good will come. Maybe I can coerce her into editing my video footage from the few helicopter flights I did today....