My initiation to horse photography began one rather chilly morning at Rancho El Destino, home of Juan and Lisa. What a beautiful little stable. I was in love. I could have spent my morning just going from stall to stall ooohing and aaahing over all the beautiful horses and rubbing their silky little noses ... but, no! I was there to practice and to learn! I spent a couple of hours traipsing around the ranch shooting this horse and that horse, which is quite different from shooting people I might add! People, except for little kids, basically stand still for you. But these horses go fast!
I learned that the type of horses raised and trained at Rancho El Destino are Paso Finos. They have a very fast natural gait, almost like they're marching, which almost made me giggle when I watched them. Juan Carlos is a 5th generation Paso Fino trainer. His family came from Colombia where they began the Paso Fino horse training tradition. His father, Alvaro Iriarte, owns Startown Stables in Newton, NC, another well known local Paso Fino Stable. Juan taught me to look for certain things to make the photos beautiful - ears pricked forward, tail "quiet", legs square under the horse .... Paso Finos are a smaller breed of horse, so in order to make them look larger we placed them on a hill and I would squat a little. We wanted those beauties to look larger than life! And they did!
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