Red Sunset

Monday I had the pleasure of paying a visit to Red Sunset, a 17 year old thoroughbred gelding, for a photo shoot. Initially, he had other ideas....namely, eating grass...instead of strutting his stuff for the camera. After paying a visit to the side of the property where the neighbor horses reside, however, we had him at attention! Cynthia and Peter - I know you are dying to see images so I wanted to take a break from my insane editing and get a few on the blog for you as a sneak preview!

Carriage and Driving Society of Kansas City Driving Trial

Having finished editing 41 classes from last Saturday's CDSGKC Pony Express Show, I'm now hastily embarking on the same for Sunday's driving trial. So driving trial participants, be patient! Here's a sneak peek to keep you excited. :)

I will be posting each event (dressage, cones, obstacles) as I complete them, so keep checking the galleries. I hope to have dressage up by late this evening.

Carriage and Driving Society of Kansas City Pony Express Show

It rained. No, it poured. The sun came out. It got steamy. The exhibitors handled it all, though, and everyone's spirits weren't dampened by the early afternoon rainstorm at all! This show was large both in number of entries and in number of classes - a whopping 41 in total, ranging from miniature horse halter to several driving classes to arabian native costume to stock seat equitation. This show had it ALL. The show staff was on the ball and super friendly, and muchas gracias goes to both Bobbi Wojtowicz and Mary Loy Brown for their help throughout the day. That being said, proofs are all posted in the show gallery and happy viewing and ordering! Here are some highlights. I've got to get back to editing Sunday's driving trial as well as a private shoot - and I have weddings galore coming up starting Saturday....back to work!







































I could post a couple hundred highlights...but I figured 20 will do. Back to editing!

Carriage and Driving Society Events at Longview this Weekend!

I've got a weekend super duper chock-full of equine photography goodness! I'll be at Longview Horse Park both days, on Saturday shooting the Carriage and Driving Society of Greater Kansas City's 26th Annual Pony Express Show. It's a jam-packed schedule of 41 classes! As such, we will NOT be doing win photos at this show in the interest of getting you all out of there before everyone misses dinner and starts getting hungry and grumpy. If you'd like a shot with your blue ribbon (or blue ribbonS if you're super cool), grab me during a break and I'd be more than happy to oblige!

Sunday we'll be doing a new event for the Carriage and Driving Society, a one-day driving trial. This is like a super-condensed and watered-down-into-one-day combined driving event. I am very excited to be able to shoot this!

We will be set up in the gazebo with our proofing monitor so at ANY time during either show, feel free to stop by and view and even order your enlargements! Saturday's photos will be up during the event Sunday as well. We also have photos from prior Pony Express Shows I've shot, so don't be shy in asking to see them! I just ask that you realize that in my over-zealous attempts to provide supercool customer service, the photos from Saturday and Sunday as you see them are unretouched, un-color-corrected, not rotated...in other words, I have not sprinkled them with magic photo powder yet. :) To see photos that look a bit tidier, go to my proofing site after the show and there they will be! I will put the Pony Express show photos up first, so driving trial competitors, be patient - it may be towards weeks' end before you see yours. I promise as usual I will work as fast as I can!

See you tomorrow morning at Longview!
Sarah

image ownership

As I take a short break before my personal busy season kicks into gear (3 horse shows, 5 weddings and a farm shoot in 6 weeks!), I thought I'd post a bit about photo copyrights.

I work very hard at what I do. I put in incredibly long hours photographing horse shows and weddings. I earn part of my living taking and selling images - and my livelihood depends on fair compensation for the images that I take.

Lately, as I am an avid Facebook user, I have come across not one, not two, but several instances of my images being used on Facebook, with my watermark on them. If you are using an image of mine from my proofing site that you have not purchased, in any way, you have committed a violation of copyright law.

If you have purchased a print from me and would like a small electronic copy for internet/Facebook/Twitter/email usage, just let me know. I'll size one and send it to you. If you have booked a wedding, engagement, senior, or any other shoot with me, the same applies. I will be more than happy to provide you small electronic images for sharing on Facebook and other social networking sites - if you have purchased images or booked a shoot with me.

I hate to go be Negative Nellie, but what was a one time occurrence has turned into a bit of an epidemic. If the copyright abuse continues, I will have no choice but to enforce my rights in a more strict manner. My husband, who works in law, is having his firm draft a copyright agreement to go on the front end of my proofing site; in the meantime, please realize this is my livelihood and although I love photography more than just about anything else (except maybe Jim!), I have to be compensated for the time I put into what I do, or else I'd go hungry. Do you ask the guy at Sonic for a free Route 44 limeade? Would you feel awkward doing so? Think about that when you take copyrighted photos. It's just not cool.