Top 10 Photos of 2023
2023 was an interesting year for me. Between opening The Ranch for dog boarding & daycare and taking nearly 4 months off for a total hysterectomy, I didn't photograph as many clients this year as in years past.
But, 2 images from private clients made into the Top 10.
I also competed in Emerge which pushed me to create several of my favorite images of the year.
So enough preamble, here, in no particular order are my top images from this year...
Glitter Girl - The Sparkliest Horse
My very first session of the year required a nearly 3 hour drive each way to photograph two horses, Glitter Girl & Kappy. GG & Kappy's mom had a brilliant idea to photograph them accented with glitter embracing Glitter Girl's name.
We used cosmetic glitter and vaseline to carefully apply the glitter to the horse's coat and added a little extra in post processing to create some really stunning images.
Callie - In the Golden Sun
Backlit photos are one of my favorite types of images to create. Something about dogs washed in golden sunshine feels magical to me. When I think about dogs in my mind's eye I always see them backlit by the sun's rays.
In fact, this image of Callie is one of THREE of my top 10 photos of 2023 that feature backlighting!
Callie came to me in March for her second photoshoot as we planned to create a full year's worth of season's in her album. We met at historic downtown Madison Georgia's cultural center which has some of the prettiest azalea blooms I've ever seen. This particular image was taken just at the end of our session and Callie was finally tired enough to sit. I love the look on her face and the soft round bokeh lights that remind me of fairy lights.
Spaced Out - Maple the Pharoah Hound for Emerge
Maple is one of my favorite dogs to photograph. In fact, Maple makes TWO appearances on thie year's Top 10 list. It doesn't hurt that her mom is a fantastic dog trainer and Maple's manners are top notch.
For this image, I was competing in the Emerge dog photography challenges on a challenge using negative space. I loved the way Maple both blended in and stood out in this image. The antique brick in downtown Rutledge, GA perfectly compliments the reddish orange of Maple's fur. Negative space always feel peaceful to me, so using a monochrome image felt like a great fit.
Unfortunately, I missed a bit of Maple's EAR duplicated in the image submitted from judging making this image fall just short of a winning finish in the competition. I corrected my editing error and this image still takes a spot in my personal Top 10 of 2023.
Photographing Black Dogs - Lizzie in the Forest
Photographing black dogs can offer challenges - capturing the dark rich fur while not loosing those gorgeous brown chocolate eyes in a black blob of pixels is one of the reason's clients reach out to a professional dog photographer. This image was taken at number 2 of Lizzie's 3 photo sessions.
We met at Athens, Georgia's Rainbow Forest to capture some images for Emerge, but then I spotted these two trees just down the hill and knew I would love to have them frame Lizzie's beautiful face. Luckily, the sun had just sunk below the horizon giving us beautiful soft non directional light.
Dog Hotel - Athens, GA Graduate Hotel
The only photo featuring one of my own dogs to make the 2023 Top 10 list! This was another photo for the Emerge dog photography challenges. This time our challenge was all about "Under Cover" - or being inside for the photos. I wanted to find somewhere cool with interesting furniture. The Graduate Hotel - a dog friendly hotel! - fit the bill perfectly!
They were kind enough to let us crash the lobby, set up lights, and photograph a couple of dogs. I love Mikey's expression in this final photo and he's practicing his newest trick "head down" which is one of my favorites to photograph!
Betty the Therapy Horse at Oconee Therapeutic Riding
One of the highlights of my year was getting to meet & photograph the therapy horses at Oconee Therapeutic Riding. The work that these horses do alongside the incredible trainers for children and adults in the community is inspiring. While I loved photographing all the horses, I especially loved this image of Betty coming out of the darkness and into the light.
Delilah - In the Wild Flowers
Even though I was just about 6 weeks post surgery, I still had a goal to finish my images for the Emerge dog photography challenges, so I planned a short session with my friend Michelle and her dog Delilah.
As we headed to our planned location I spotted one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Nestled at the bottom of the hill at Indian Creek Park (one of my favorite places to photograph dogs) in what I call the "meadow" was an explosion of wild flowers.
I have lived here for 10 years now and have never seen the wildflowers like this. Typically the field is regularly mowed and while beautiful with grass and trees and filtered sunlight, it had never been this fantasy land overrun with flowers.
Once we hiked down, I realized why it hadn't been mowed - several weeks with LOTS of rain had left the entire meadow floor soft and muddy which kept the lawn mowing tractors off. We set Delilah up and I photographed this one image before hiking back up the hill absolutely exhausted, but so happy with this photo.
I spent a lot of my recovery driving over to the park to walk among the flowers until they were finally cut. It still feels a little like a magic trip to Narnia.
Golden Golden Retriever - Feather at the Farm
Here we are with another backlit image from 2023. This time it's Feather the gorgeous Golden Retreiver photographed for the Bokehlicious challenge in Emerge 2023. Bokehlicious was all about capturing those little round circles of light in the lens. My vision for this challenge needed a golden dog to play into the colors of golden sunset bokeh.
Luckily my friend Marilyn has the MOST gorgeous young Golden Retriever named Feather AND she was willing for me to come kidnap Feather for the afternoon to photograph her at my sister in law's farm in Rutledge, GA. This image is everything I imagined in my mind and I love the way it turned out!
Double Trouble - Double Pharoah Hounds for Emerge
For the Double Trouble challenge in Emerge I really wanted to find two dogs that looked as much alike as possible. It's harder to find a more beautifully matched pair of dogs that Maple & her daughter Party.
I tasked their mom Hannah with practicing having the girls standing facing each other based on my very technical concept drawings (saracasm, lol). Be sure to click over the Facebook the see the before & after.
This image not only made a Top 10 in the Emerge challenges it finished as the NUMBER ONE image for the Double Trouble challenge.
Shake! Shake! Shake it off! - With Twyla the Chocolate Lab
For my final favorite image from 2023, I thought we could have a little fun! This isn't my usual image style, but I love about competing in the Unleashed Dog Photography challenges is adapting my style to fit the brief. I'm using all my favorite colors for dog photography - browns and greens - and mixing in some great expression with the one little tooth sticking out - and finishing it with a really dynamic SHAKE from Twyla!
I have to know
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Why I’m glad I hired a pet photographer for my own photos
Every little girl's dream
I was 4 years old when I got the fairytale gift every little girl dreams of - my grandfather gave me my very own horse.
It was cold and 8 month old Dixie Rose had her fuzzy winter coat and I was wearing my brand new Western duster in bright red. I was wearing my fanciest cowgirl boots and cowgirl hat and had the kind of excitement you only get as a 4 year old horse crazy little girl.
If you know me, you know my horse’s name was Ginger - and here’s a funny story about what happens when you give a 4 year old a horse named Dixie Rose:
Dixie Rose is a beautiful name. It’s a perfect name for a quarter horse cross chestnut mare with a golden mane and tail. It’s a very hard name for a little girl to remember and when your little girl is standing on the porch calling for “Rosie Dick” you realize maybe it’s a good idea to have her choose a new name for her new horse. So, Dixie Rose became Ginger, named after the mare that was Black Beauty’s best friend.
30 Years of Being A Horse Girl
From there began the longest relationship of my life. Over the next more than 30 years Ginger was my best friend. I spent hours and hours in the pasture of my grandparent’s North Carolina farm brushing Ginger, setting out hay, giving treats, and riding the same little path in the pasture 6 million times. I hugged her and laughed with her and cried into the fur on her neck more times than I count.
When I was home in Georgia I took lessons, first western and then hunter jumper and then dressage for fifteen years. Ginger was a trooper as I changed disciplines and tried to teach her to side pass, turn on the forehand, piaffe, etc. She’d try most anything for me - especially if there a peppermint at the end for her.
I dreamed of the day I’d get to have her at my home and not a state away that I could only visit on weekends and summer breaks. And when we bought the farm that would become the Rescue Ranch, I planned a pasture so she could come home to live with me. I was ridiculously excited when we finally bought a horse trailer and went to pick her up. It was that same feeling I remember as a 4 year old little girl.
It had been years since she’d loaded into a trailer and everyone was nervous she wouldn’t get on. She walked right in with me.
At this point, she was retired from being my riding partner, but I was so happy to be able to look out my bedroom window and see her in her new pasture. I loved walking out in the mornings with her breakfast and having her nicker at me to hurry it up. I loved watching her with her two mini donkey pasture buddies that she could boss around.
My grandmother asked me so many times to get her a picture of me with Ginger.
She really wanted a picture of us together to go in her frame. I sent her a picture of just Ginger and promised I’d get one of me too, but I put it off.
I struggle with pictures of me. I don’t love the way I look or my weight or my face or my hair. I reached out to an equine photographer friend, but didn’t actually book anything. I’d get pictures made when I lost 20 pounds.
And then in September of 2019 my grandmother passed away suddenly.
And I hadn’t gotten the pictures done.
My grandmother was my family’s photo keeper. As we went through her things after her death I have FIVE albums of photos of just me through my childhood. Those great big albums that had the clear sheet you put the 4x5’s behind.
And on the wall in her house was one of the frames that has multiple openings for photos and there was the picture I had sent her of just Ginger and then an empty place where the picture I had promised her was supposed to go.
And I still hadn’t had the pictures done.
Then it was 2020 and we were in a pandemic and I put things off again. Instead of losing 20 pounds I gained 10 pounds. We all stayed home. I started to build a studio. And then my grandfather got sick.
We couldn’t visit him in the hospital and so we conferenced with the doctors and then had to make the decision about hospice care. If we did in home hospice then we would all be able to visit and say goodbye. I was able to transform my guest room into a hospital room and he came here.
I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to have him here in my home as he made his final transition back to my grandmother. I know that he wanted to pass at his own home in the country in North Carolina with the pasture out his window, and while we couldn’t give him that I hope that having him at my home in the country in Georgia with a pasture out the window and Ginger in that pasture was a close second choice.
And I still hadn’t had the pictures done.
Again, we went through the paperwork of death. We gathered the photos as you always do and there were so many, thanks to my grandmother’s dedication to printed photos.
And I finally realized it didn’t matter that I wasn’t 30 pounds thinner or that I hadn’t had a haircut now in nearly a year because we were in a global pandemic.
I just needed to get the photos.
The pictures were important for the memories, for capturing the relationship, for having something to look back on - not for what I looked like.
So, I finally scheduled my session with Charlotte Detienne Photography for photos of me with Ginger. We had our session in September of 2020.
I was so nervous I panicked and cut my own hair the night before. I worried about what I would wear and if you’d see the little lines that have started appearing around my eyes (and on my neck…. Who knew the aging lines on my neck would be so obvious). I nearly called to postpone, but I am so glad I didn’t.
Ginger was her normal opinionated mare self throughout our session.
She refused to snuggle with me unless I had treats in my hand.
She didn’t want to stand still.
She rubbed sloberry horse cookies all over me.
And it was perfect.
When I met with Charlotte a few weeks after our session I loved the images. She managed to capture everything I wanted. The photos show our relationship developed over the last 30 years. I had a hard time narrowing down my favorites to have printed in a beautiful image box.
In November of 2020 Ginger was diagnosed with Cushing's disease after she developed an abscessed tooth that brought us into the equine vet. Because of her age and the Cushing’s diagnosis, removing the tooth with dental surgery wasn’t an option. Luckily, with antibiotics her tooth seemed to heal very well, but she was losing weight steadily. She began daily medication for her Cushing’s disease.
On December 4th 2020 when I went out to take her breakfast she didn’t come across the pasture nickering at me to hurry up. Instead she was standing on the side of the pasture with her head down. I knew the moment I walked up to her that the infection was back and it was worse.
I called the vet to let her know we were on the way, and I begged Ginger to load into the trailer. She refused to step inside. I knew that she was ready to say goodbye, and she wanted to do it at home. Our vet came out that evening and helped her say goodbye and I cried into the fur on her neck one more time.
It’s been four months and I’ve been putting off writing this post because it’s hard to believe that after 30 years she’s really gone. When I look at the pictures Charlotte created for us, I don’t see the flaws I usually see in the mirror.
I see the incredible relationship that I was lucky enough to be a part of for so long. I see the horse crazy little girl and the lesson taking child and the teenager who dreamed of having her own farm and the woman who now lives on that farm and the horse that was there through it all.
And I am so glad I finally had the pictures done.
