Relational Equestrian Photography

The horse blogosphere is an online word-of-mouth extravaganza featuring products and services that I wouldn’t normally hear about in my day-to-day working, going to the barn, and stopping at Trader Joe’s “bubble.” That’s how I recently became acquainted with Horses Who Love equestrian photography and the artist behind the camera, Steve Hoffmann, thanks to Nicole from Zen and the Art of Baby Horse Management.

[Update 2019: The photographer is focusing on non-equestrian photography currently, but the pictures are still so beautiful and unique I want to leave this blog post up. Enjoy! If you are looking for a fantastic equestrian photographer in Southern California I highly recommend Vanessa Hughes, a.k.a. Lady Photographic.)

Steve is technically a photographer, but not in the traditional horse show or portrait photographer sense. His equestrian photography is visual storytelling at its finest, using medium format film and a little bit of 35mm to weave a narrative of the sweet relationship that exists between horse and horse lover.

Horses Who Love photography excels at documenting the little things that we horse lovers do together with our animals that are meaningful and emotional, noticing the minute details.

Some of these activities are not inherently emotional but I missed them while Knight was in the hospital. Things like carrying a saddle, tacking and untacking, brushing Knight’s tail, strolling from here to there.

Steve Hoffmann uses only film, no digital photography. The pictures created in this “old-fashioned” manner emerge looking organic and vintage-y and I love them!

Knight and I had the pleasure of a photo shoot with Steve in exchange for this post and it was fun (not at all stressful, except for the fact Knight had a new cut on his face thanks to roughhousing with his neighbor).

Steve’s demeanor around Knight was very quiet and calm. He seemed to really enjoy the experience (like it wasn’t work for him–but a passion). He also had tremendous patience and was able to communicate in precise words how I should stand or position Knight better. The shoot felt very natural and not overly posed.