I have personally overlooked the New Forest Ponies as a photographic subject for quite some time now and with the new forest being less than an hour away I really had no excuse. I’ve never really seen horses as an interesting subject – a famous photographer once said “Swans are the subject of cheap post cards” and this is exactly how I felt about horses… until now.
Driven by interest in photographing something different from deer but wanting to remain in the large mammal category I was forced to give them a go. But I didn’t want to just photograph them in the heather and be done with it. I wanted to use them as an experimental piece to play with new photographic angles that I might be able to take into photographing other subjects… surprise surprise.. such as deer.
I wanted clear clears and direct sunlight, I wanted black out backgrounds but also blown out backgrounds. I wanted front light possibilities and back light possibilities. I basically wanted a flat canvas to experiment with form. This mean I needed fairly flat but also fairly hill ground. This is actually quite easy to find in the new forest and all you have to do is drive until you find a group of ponies in a suitable spot and just hang out.
Also the great thing about the New Forest Ponies is that they come in different colours, white, brown and black so by shifting between the animals you can get different colours and feels to your images.
Here are some of the images I have collected of the New forest Ponies. Hope you enjoy.
