The school year has started and now summer travels are memories. The fuzzy, insubstantial people of this long-exposure photograph kind of match the feeling of fading reminiscences.
Tag: photography
Watching the Water
On a hike with my extended Decaseconds family to Laurel Falls, we paused by the flowing water to explore some strange arrangements of roots and rocks. Landscapes are so much more enticing to a human viewer when there are obviously human forms in the picture, they say, and this image definitely supports that thesis.
Pony Finals Mega 2021/2020
The start of August marked Pony Finals 2021 (and a partial re-do of the aborted Pony Finals 2020.) Unlike recent years in the Walnut Ring, this year’s Pony Finals was held in Kentucky Horse Park’s dramatic Rolex Arena—and I was there with media credentials for The Plaid Horse.
Getting the show up and running meant moving a lot of resources, like the stack of bedding here, around the Horse Park… But the result was occasionally some unfortunate traffic jams.
Rails for jumps, likewise, were stacked up and ready to go.
The pony model classes happened relatively early on in the competition. Though spectators crowded the rails, stewards monitored them carefully to prevent any coaching of the young competitors.
Carleton Brooks and Piper Klemm were among the spectators.
Achieving victory in the model has a lot to do with conformation. Front legs should be even with one another.
When the class ended, the competitors exited beneath the massive Rolex sign.
Just outside the Arena was an area for warm up and golf-cart parking.
Riders stand at attention during an under saddle class.
…Then exit the Arena in an orderly fashion when the class has ended. The pool of competitors in some divisions was so large that they were broken into multiple groups.
While some ponies were in the ring, others were in the schooling ring for trials.
With horses and ponies involved in all kinds of activities, the Horse Park had a festival atmosphere.
Small ponies look even smaller in front of big signage.
And the huge Rolex Arena looks even bigger with a small pony in it.
At the end of the day, though, this is ultimately about what pony and rider can do together in the ring.
Fences on fences on fences.
The list of what pony is in what class… While this board might be small at some shows, here most divisions number in the dozens.
A bird’s eye view of the warm-up ring.
So many ponies are on the grounds that tents are used to supplement stall space.
Bath time outside the tent. Drying off the pony after washing is important to prevent overheating on humid summer days.
Back at the cottage, the trailer rests before another day as “pony taxi service”.
Campsite
Along the trail to Laurel Falls, smooth, flat creekside campsites with well-defined fire pits make ideal rest stops.
Six Flags Great Adventure
Childhood games of RollerCoaster Tycoon conditioned me to the experience of viewing theme parks from high above; passing Six Flags Great Adventure in a commercial airliner provided a remarkably similar vantage.
Pony Mirror Symmetry
These two gray ponies chose to graze in a very satisfying mirrored geometry.
Every Detail of the Bay, Redux
This image is another in a series of my re-processings of less-than-new RAW files with Photoshop’s “Super Resolution” machine learning algorithm. As in those other cases, the added impression of detail is particularly astonishing when viewed at full size after clicking through to the original image on Flickr.
Thanks, TC Boom Boom Club
When the previous sponsor ended their support for Independence Day fireworks in Traverse City, Michigan, a group of locals formed the “TC Boom Boom Club” to keep the tradition going. That name is really something, but silliness aside, there are some northern Michigan challenges kind-hearted locals can’t fix—like the remaining sunlight in the sky, even after 10:00 PM.
An Olympic Gold Medalist on Decaseconds
This morning, Ben Maher won gold riding Explosion W in the individual jumpers at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. I captured the pair in action at the Longines Global Champions League on Governors Island in 2019.
River Stone
The hike to Laurel Falls brought a mix of sand and stone (and sandstone?) in its geology that differs from the Adirondack settings that I’m most used to. The mixture of geological features and stunted trees in the setting has a calming “natural equivalent of a Japanese garden” quality to it that I really appreciated.
Above It All
When the Bay Area feels so dense and overwhelming with information, people, and ideas, a drive up to Grizzly Peak is an escape.
Graffiti Logs
Shooting summer landscapes in the Bay Area typically means swaths of gold, blue, and red. Bright pinks and magentas are much less common, but the jackets and graffiti of Grizzly Peak on this particular evening brought those novel hues.
Cascade at Sunset
A drone shot of the Cascade Diner (and its subterranean partner, the Buccaneer Lounge) reveals the reason for the institution’s name.
Picnic with the Bay
“Escaping from it all” may be difficult in the Bay Area, but an evening picnic in the Berkeley Hills gets pretty close.
Scenes from the Kentucky Horse Park in Spring
Though “one day, one photograph” is my typical style, the images from my springtime trip to the Kentucky Horse Park (mostly taken while hanging around at the warm-up ring) make a charming slice-of-life set.
Let’s start things off with The Plaid Horse‘s publisher, Dr. Piper Klemm, with Sundae.
While the warm-up ring is ostensibly a place to practice prior to showing, it also often the location of impromptu meetings and morning strolls.
Piper Klemm on Sundae in the warm-up ring.
The warm-up is also a place for horses to shake out some energy and get any necessary attitude adjustment.
Dapples mean a healthy horse.
That preparation time made for positive results in the ring. Trainer Emily Elek congratulations Reuben.
It’s bath time for a sweaty horse done with showing.
Compress-air-powered airbag vests are increasingly common on younger riders.
Early in the morning, the golf carts waited in lines outside the barns—mimicking the positions of nearby horses in their stalls in the barns.
Cell phone videos of warm-up make an exceptionally valuable tool for improvement.
Reuben very occasionally sticks out his tongue and I find it funnier than I should.
A close overlap between conversation-walk and warm-up-canter in the warm-up ring.
Piper on Reuben.
The pattern of planting boxes reminded me of the pacing of strides riders seek to find approaching a jump.
Junior rider Lexi Miller relaxes between rounds.
Decaseconds 