Canter over the mountain endurance ride with portraits and fun water crossings 2010

Patty and I had a great weekend in Mannington, West Virginia. The manager for the ride, Samantha Lewis, did a fabulous job running the ride with every rider expressing their appreciation for how everything went. I would encourage people who were there to post comments about the ride at the bottom of this blog post. I will make sure that Samantha sees them and it will serve to promote the ride for next year as well.

It was a one day ride, so were able to drive on Saturday and arrive in early afternoon. After Patty vetted-in and we set up the tent and paddock I stopped in to talk with Samantha and she took me to a couple of places that she thought would be great places to shoot from. As it turned out, I was able to use each place that she showed me. When we got back to camp, the light was getting good and I decided to offer some mini portrait sessions to those who were interested. They were able to announce this over the loudspeaker and I worked my way through the camp seeing who might be interested. I had several takers.

Carla Siebert Plezewski was delighted with the opportunity to do some portraits. I believe that she is considering making a wall sized canvas of one of these.

This portrait is Colleen Greene and her horse. She left before seeing her portraits when the ride ended, but she checked the proofing galleries online and immediately placed an order. She used one of the images as her new profile image on Facebook and then emailed me about all the comments she was getting about it. Thanks, Colleen, I love hearing about stuff like that. We did some portraits with her with her husband and dog as well.

I met Mustafa Tehrani, master farrier and was able to take some portraits of him and his trusty mount.

The 50 mile riders came through before the fog burned off, but I thought it made for some very interesting images. As soon as the sun burned off the fog, then light was from behind and too bright, so I moved to one of the stream crossings. I spent the rest of the morning sitting on the bank and catching all the riders as they passed by. Some were fun and others were scenic.

To see more of the trail and the portrait photos from this great event go to: http://pdemott.smugmug.com/Endurance-Competitive-Trail/Canter-Over-the-Mountain/13665356_e3R58#997745374_FvkQT

If you would like to schedule a fall portrait in the greater Dayton area, please call soon as available time slots are filling quickly. Thanks, Peter 937-478-6222