(The Scottish Gaelic title is according to Google Translate. Please let us know whether it makes sense or not!)

In the south of the council of Perth and Kinross there is a house that you reach by turning left on a farm track, crossing at cattle gridand driving left through a wooden gate. It’s the home to eight horses and a samoyed that were to be our models.

We arrived in the afternoon after our first hours of driving on the left side of the road. We were welcomed by Craig and Lynn with tea, coffee and Scottish snowballs.
Already at our holiday last year, we experienced what a great way photography is meet people and get an insight into their life. Back then, we visited Christine and John on Cephalonia.

The horses we were about to photograph were all different, both in terms of looks and personality which made each shoot different and interesting.

We learned early on that there doesn’t appear to be many places in Scotland that can be described as ugly. We came by a few places that might be described with mediocre or a little boring, but right out ugly? Nope.

And of course the location Craig and Lynn’s home was beautiful! On top of that, the light was quite okay as well due to some rainclouds that still allowed some sunrays to get through.

Jonathan doing his very own thing.

It did rain a couple of times, however not enough to get us really soaked, so we just worked through it. We had to photograph eight horses after all, and the rain actually really added to the amazing dramatic light.

Look at this shot taken during golden hour!
The pup is 1-year old dalmatian Spencer, by the way. He was not happy to be on a leash.

Grumpy McGrumpyface

Kisses and nibbles!

Lilly kept us under a close observation as well. She was very shy in the beginning, but after we apparently proved to her that we were okay, she demanded cuddles and wouldn’t let us go.

Horse Photography With Rider

Two of the horses we photographed with all their tack and riders. We took some pictures of them in the riding area and the fields around. When being ridden and moved around the horses tended to be more focused.

When little sister wants to ride, too!

Judith in action, trying not to get trampled by a horse.

The audience!

Having the noms.

Horse Photography Without Rider

Photographing horses without a rider allows for more creativity as you you only have to focus on capturing the horse without worrying about whether the rider’s head or feet are cut off.

However, the horses became more unconcentrated as the grass was way more interesting than having to look into specific directions as the silly humans wants without any reason. So we spent a lot of times walking the horses in circles, making weird sounds, hopping, clapping and shaking treat boxes.

Look at those ear tips!

Aren’t they just adorable?

Photographing Multiple Horses - And a Dog!

Eleanor wanted to have a picture with both her horses and her Dalmatian puppy Spence. Spencer was the one everyone was most worried about as he was very energetic and not super happy about being on a leash.

However, while Spender sometimes listened to the command sit, the horses didn’t know any such commands, so we have a lot of fun photos of Eleanor trying to get all three of them to look into our direction.

What a family photo!

Golden hour really hitting it off with the rain. We practically screamed at Eleanor to just continue riding around cause everything just looked so good.

Before And After

Some of the photos actually has gotten a more thorough edit than the others. On the photo below, the horse’s pose was perfect, Lynn was standing behind it so it looked kinda weird, though.

So here is a before and after of that shot:

On other photos we edited out the leash or headcollar.

Craig and Lynn also wished to have a photo of their horse with a black background. The easiest way to achieve this is to place the horse in the stable entrance and then edit the photo a lot in Photoshop: