So, "back in the day" when I was younger and my hands/wrists were in MUCH better shape, I showed some of my model horses in performance at live shows. Western performance was my "specialty" (go figure! LOL!) and I showed to several notable division championships under great judges, and also to several NAN Top Tens and a Reserve Championship. As my CTS (carpal tunnel syndrome) worsened, and I started collecting and showing more OF china horses in halter, I dropped showing in performance.
A few weeks ago, I found my old photos from 17-ish years ago for many of my horses. For all you "old timers" like me who used to photo show A LOT, you'll remember this next name... Carol Gerhard was one of the few people who would do complete performance "sets" of photos. You'd send Carol your model(s), tack if you had it (or Carol had a TON of tack and props of her own that she'd use), and arrange for which events you wanted your horse photographed doing. Carol would then tack up your horse, set up the obstacles, snap away with her camera... (NOTE: having done my own halter and a smattering of performance snaps, I now have a complete respect and awe for what model horse photographers do!) When Carol was finished, your horse(s) and tack would be returned to you, and the photos and negatives also came your way... Seems so archaic and quaintly old-fashioned now. *grin*
Now, my involvement with the IPABRA club has come in fits-and-starts. One of the "major" contributions I made during a spurt of involvement was to get a regular monthly set of performance-only photo shows going. The club offered year-end "titles" and lifetime achievement titles in performance but did not have any regular monthly point-only show offerings just for performance. This carried on for several years, but as the people who were "active" in the club drifted away, the performance shows likewise withered. They have recently been re-kindled with new members and renewed interest, in addition to the monthly series of mail-in photo shows, there are also now the on-line versions (for both halter and performance). Having made the "switch" over to the on-line halter shows, and having found my "treasure trove" of old performance photos, I decided to take the plunge and get back into showing in performance, at least in the IPABRA on-line shows.
So, initially much scanning and cropping and otherwise futzing with my old performance photos ensued. Most of my horses with pre-existing performance photos were customs or artist resins, I have 2 OF horses with near-complete sets of performance photos, and one lone OF ISH that had been the, err-umm..., victim? volunteer? experiment?, when I was trying out some performance photo set-ups. After loading the photos that I had, I realized that I could enter a few more models in the OF performance section.
I did manage to find my old "box o' performance stuff" and proceeded to dig it all out, make sure everything was in decent shape, etc. The next step was fitting tack to horses. And this is the stage where I realized how bad my hands/wrists have gotten... It's a GOOD thing I wasn't up against "real life time constraints" between classes at a live show, because I would have never made it! ;-) But I was able to get a couple ISH's set up and photographed, I still have a Breyer Roxy that I'd like to get photographed, but that will have to wait for the next round...
A few weeks ago, I found my old photos from 17-ish years ago for many of my horses. For all you "old timers" like me who used to photo show A LOT, you'll remember this next name... Carol Gerhard was one of the few people who would do complete performance "sets" of photos. You'd send Carol your model(s), tack if you had it (or Carol had a TON of tack and props of her own that she'd use), and arrange for which events you wanted your horse photographed doing. Carol would then tack up your horse, set up the obstacles, snap away with her camera... (NOTE: having done my own halter and a smattering of performance snaps, I now have a complete respect and awe for what model horse photographers do!) When Carol was finished, your horse(s) and tack would be returned to you, and the photos and negatives also came your way... Seems so archaic and quaintly old-fashioned now. *grin*
Now, my involvement with the IPABRA club has come in fits-and-starts. One of the "major" contributions I made during a spurt of involvement was to get a regular monthly set of performance-only photo shows going. The club offered year-end "titles" and lifetime achievement titles in performance but did not have any regular monthly point-only show offerings just for performance. This carried on for several years, but as the people who were "active" in the club drifted away, the performance shows likewise withered. They have recently been re-kindled with new members and renewed interest, in addition to the monthly series of mail-in photo shows, there are also now the on-line versions (for both halter and performance). Having made the "switch" over to the on-line halter shows, and having found my "treasure trove" of old performance photos, I decided to take the plunge and get back into showing in performance, at least in the IPABRA on-line shows.
So, initially much scanning and cropping and otherwise futzing with my old performance photos ensued. Most of my horses with pre-existing performance photos were customs or artist resins, I have 2 OF horses with near-complete sets of performance photos, and one lone OF ISH that had been the, err-umm..., victim? volunteer? experiment?, when I was trying out some performance photo set-ups. After loading the photos that I had, I realized that I could enter a few more models in the OF performance section.
I did manage to find my old "box o' performance stuff" and proceeded to dig it all out, make sure everything was in decent shape, etc. The next step was fitting tack to horses. And this is the stage where I realized how bad my hands/wrists have gotten... It's a GOOD thing I wasn't up against "real life time constraints" between classes at a live show, because I would have never made it! ;-) But I was able to get a couple ISH's set up and photographed, I still have a Breyer Roxy that I'd like to get photographed, but that will have to wait for the next round...
And after I finished "playing" with performance stuff, I remembered the "new" Convenant Renewed resin that needed halter photos. So before dismantling the photo set-up, I grabbed my mini backdrop and hastily snapped his photo. This will be the photo that he shows with so Twilight Ashbrooke CDM will join his bay/brown counterpart at the shows soon...