Lotti & Austen

Lotti was one of the brave people that put herself forward for my winter model call - I'm out to prove a point that winter is a beautiful time of year to have a photoshoot with your horse. I feel that combined with some brighter pieces of clothing to cheer up the grey days, having some snuggly winter photos with your horse or pony is a big win.

We were really lucky we got a gorgeous frosty afternoon when I went to visit Lotti and her um Nicola at their home in Alton, Staffordshire. Lotti has a few ponies that she does a lot of showjumping with, but we chose to use Austen for this shoot.

Unfortunately she's got to move onto bigger ponies, and so they wanted to capture some lovely memories with Austen before he goes onto his next chapter.

Austen was previously a racing pony, and Lotti has worked hard to school him into the showjumping pony he is today. He is 15 now, and Lotti has had him for 2 years, they compete at 1.10m/1.15m together.

As it was pretty chilly on the day, we didn't change Lotti's outfit too much. We kept it simple with a jumper change which was nice and easy for everyone.

We started on the driveaway, then moved to one of the paddocks. We also used the paddock where their goats live - it's very hilly but had gorgeous views and a few nice rocks we could use for sitting on.

To finish off we headed down the drive into a wooded area that leads directly to Dimmingsdale woods. Though we didn't need to go deep into the woods as there were some beautiful pine trees and the light was gorgeous at the top of the trail. I actually think the orange jumper was my favourite, I loved how Lotti tied her hair up as well, a really simple way to create a totally different look for the final set of images.

Of course we couldn't leave out their JRT x Roxy, who posed like an absolute pro for a couple of photos at the end of the shoot.