random weekend shots

It’s a gray and quiet sunday morning with rain hammering against the windows (again), perfect for recapping a quite eventful saturday.
My friend Dana and I had made plans to go thrifting and met up at her mom’s place about an hour’s drive away from us. At least it would have been an hour’s drive if I hadn’t gotten stuck in a traffic jam on a blocked autobahn. But I made it there at last and settled down for a cup of tea in her mom’s cozy kitchen.

I love her apartment, it’s simple and so comfy with all the handmade and thrifted items in it.

We usually get to the thrift store with fuller cars than when we leave, because we always donate stuff. I’m a big fan of decluttering and getting rid of useless or unused stuff (I’m actually planning a post on that) and since our family and friends know that we make these thrifting trips regularly they often ask us to take some of their stuff to donate as well.
I’m always planning to take pictures of our full trunks or of the thrift store itself, but once I get there I forget. I’m just too eager to get started treasure hunting! We were quite successful again this saturday and when the endless rain lets off I hope to get some pictures of the stuff we bought.
Dana’s mum has a sweet (and newly pregnant!) icelandic horse, which she keeps at a nearby farm so we stopped by there and met some very cuddly goats.

That farm also has my dream veggie garden. They even planted a few of my tomato seedlings (not pictured) under rain cover and I was amazed to see how huge they had grown. They were as tall as me and laden with fruit. Especially the green zebra and yellow ones looked just so healthy and different that I realized that these really weren’t types that would thrive in a container.

We then drove on to another barn and watched Dana’s mum have a riding lesson, which was quite different to the lessons we’re used to, since icelandic horses are ridden so differently.

We met sweet horses and dogs and then went on to yet another barn in the neighbourhood where a speed rodeo was being held. Some of the people and horses from our barn back home were participating and we went to see them ride and cheer them on.

Just about as perfect a day as it gets for me. Filled with simple pleasures like having a cup of tea in a cozy kitchen, spending the day with wonderful, warmhearted and uncomplicated people, being around a variety of friendly animals to cuddle and play with and just taking the time to enjoy the rare bits of warm sunshine.
After a week in a dynamic and exciting but also challenging and at times hectic work environment a day like this is what grounds me and what makes me realize again and again what it is that makes me happy (it’s easy to forget sometimes isn’t it, getting caught up in day-to-day routines.)

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i have a plan

Think my kitties could learn that?

Mh, neither do I. But it sure looks like fun 🙂 I think we’ll stick to perfecting our high fives and sitting up and giving paws….later.

trick training

We had a weekend training course at the barn last weekend. Trick training is something I have always wanted to learn and though I’ve done some clicker training with my cats, working with a big heavy horse is something else!
The horses were all very curious and most learned really quickly.

We’re planning to practice regularly over the winter and maybe put together a little show next year.
Where there are horses there will almost always be dogs too and I had fun shooting some dog portraits in between.


Wrinkly gorgeousness:

Off to plan a show program for my cats!

relishing

days at the barn, gorgeous light, fresh fall air, no cell phone reception.

I read a very interesting article the other day about how we have forgotten or unlearned to really let go and relax (I am just realizing there is no english equivalent for the german term “Muße”). That we are always tense, feeling the need to do stuff, to get things done, to answer the phone, answer emails and text messages.
I am guilty of that too, although we do try to slow down our lifestyle. Have a little experiment: Turn off the TV, the radio, the cell phone for a week or two. You’ll be amazed how you start noticing high noise levels elsewhere and how annoying they are, how glaring TV ads and how stupid most shows.

You’ll be amazed at how happy simplicity makes.


My weakness of course is the internet, but I’m working on it 🙂

kids shoot – josy & patrick

Yesterday was the second of three kid’s shootings I’m doing right now. We were really worried about the weather and I got there in the middle of a storm but luckily once we got to the location we wanted to shoot in it cleared up fast 🙂
I’ve photographed Josy and Patrick before and they are the most delightful kids I’ve ever met, always happy and playful and so eager to pose for photos…perfect models really!



We included both their cute dog and their favourite horses in the shoot (though there were some tears in between when the horse stepped on Josy’s foot).



And two more because I’m loving all of these!


I’ll close with this one because it’s really representative of what a fun shoot this was!