Contact Sheet - Me and Ellie

I have been photographing my close family members for years and have some lovely images of them. However if I am to consider intimacy and a close family member then I have to look at my horse. Not just because she is a child substitute but I also feel the need to represent her as family as I am about to have her put down. She has been very ill over the summer and I do not think it would be fair to put her through another cold winter.

With this in mind I have been spending a lot of time with her and I recently took her for a walk and captured images of her using the Canon 300D and the Canon A1 with black and white film in it.

Contact sheet from the walk.

DIGITAL

I am still trying to get some images like Tim Flachs - but these are a failure. Also it is very difficult trying to control a horse wants to race off up the lane and two cameras. I was lucky to get any images at all to be honest.

BLACK AND WHITE

I much prefer the black and white images. They have a much more intimate quality. After looking through all the imges the one that struck me was the image with both of our shadows and Ellies nose in top left and image 22.

I processed images 30 and 22 in the darkroom to see if they had potential.

22 has a wistful quality. I have many photographs of Ellie looking across a field showing what has caught her attention. This one stands out for me as the jump just in front of her is shaped in a 'V' and gives a nice lead in line to make you follow the view across the field.

Image 30 is the winner for me as it shows me doing the two things I have always loved doing throughout my life. Horses since I was 4 and photography since I was 17. The finishing touch on this image for me is that her nose has just cut into the top of the image - just so you don't forget she is a horse!

All of these images are very intrusive - they are a final fond farewell to something that I love very much. It will break my heart to make, and set in motion, that ultimate decision.