Where to even start with this session, other than FIRE.
This stunning woman and I have been planning this session for literally months. We have gone back and forth about outfits, hair styles, horse training, lighting, weather, hay fields and hurricanes. We scheduled and rescheduled, got heat waved out and hurricaned out and finally, FINALLY had an opening that would work. The weather was just right. The gnats were nowhere to be found (I’ll talk about THOSE in another post) and the Wooly Mammoth coat on Maestro hadn’t yet made it’s appearance.
It was as if Mother Nature had kept telling us, “wait just a little longer, I promise it will be worth it.”
Abriana chose to style her session by wearing a beautiful mustard yellow chiffon dress with a slit in it seemingly made for horseback riding. She designed and made her own floral crown, with touches of orange maple leaves and sprigs of greenery to match the season, along with beautiful daisies and sunflowers to match her dress. She had also been working with Maestro, her Tennessee Walking Horse, to ensure that he would be able to handle a dress billowing around him in the wind. With her faithful Dutch Shepherd companion at her side, we started her session right in her backyard in Wendell, North Carolina.
Abriana and I met through our farrier and a mutual love for naturally gaited Tennessee Walkers, their shod counterparts oftentimes being surrounded by controversy. Using Maestro in her shoot was a given, and was the perfect opportunity to showcase the natural beauty of this wonderful breed. She has worked diligently in his training since obtaining him as a young foal and her work was evident during our photoshoot. He showed off and parked out and behaved beautifully, and Abriana was full of fierceness and elegance. The warm glow of the sunset backlit them beautifully and reflected light off of a nearby pond.
This session, for me, is truly what dreams are made of.
Catrina Williams Photography 