BEHIND THE SCENES...

We had such an amazing 4 days shooting our brand photography in October, we really wanted to share some ‘behind the scenes’.

Zoe and I have always had a very clear vision for our brand. We understand the equestrian obsessed with their sport, their horses and their passions. And that’s because we are the brand.

We're not models. We are not always tucked in, smart and clean. We get dirty, We spend our days with our horses and it’s this ‘reality’ of the hard working ambitious equestrian we wanted to capture in our brand shoot.

To do this we pulled in the the super talented Maxime Gautier, a French photographer and friend to capture this reality. His style captures the grit and the detail in the most beautiful lighting. We are lucky enough to have some of the most amazing light and clouds in Wiltshire to really captured the atmosphere and mood.

We also pulled in Art Director Mike Molyneux, famed for his 30 years experience Art Directing advertising campaigns for huge brands such as, 6 Nations, Tetley and Adidas, amongst others. Being an ex-rugby player for Harlequins, there is no one better to understand the passion behind your sport and the commitment and drive it takes to reach your ambitions and goals. He managed to do an amazing job despite being allergic to horses!

Our fabulous sponsored riders, turned their hand to modelling with ease, despite some cries on arrival of ‘I’m no model’ from Cara Hayward. Yet once in front of the camera she turned on the charm, even spotting her spinning around in the saddle on my horse Florence, at one point!

Abi brought along the beautiful and super well behaved 4 year old, Zeni (Suspension Innocent, owned by Lotty Chatterton of Suspension Dressage Sales). What a super star horse. He was so calm and contained, even when we had the photographer suspended 12ft in the air down the centre line to get the perfect shot!

Danni’s horses were all on end of season holidays so she volunteered to ride my mares for the shoot. I have to say I was pretty jealous at the instant connection she made with my beautiful Florence, who hadn’t jumped for around 2 months due to me being pregnant. But I do think my favourite moment was watching Danni hoon up and down the gallop track on my other mare Bo, like a kid on a slide. We couldn’t get her off! Bo is a great gallop. Slick, fast, light on her feet but very polite about it all. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of Danni this winter….

Sam was away in Brazil for the main shoot, but he braved his way in front of the camera on his return and rode my mare Florence. I forgot to tell him I'd been teaching her flying changes and she was still a little fresh with excitement...hence the little buck!

We wanted to capture real people, real passion and real horses.

So, a big thank you to all the team for all their energy, spirit and support. And making this happen!

Mel & Zoe

Photographer

http://www.maximegautier.com/

Sam Dempsey

http://www.dlphorses.com/sam-and-julia/

Abi Hutton

https://www.facebook.com/CharlieHuttonAbiLyleDressage/

Danni Dunn

https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=danni%20dunn%20eventing

Cara Hayward