Grace & Jessie

"Imogen provides a very well thought out and prepped service from start to finish.

Our shoot was amazing and fun even though we had rain and wind and sun to contend with and a hangry child with a short attention span. Imogen was able to guide us through making the most of the venue and weather. My daughter was natural and felt at ease with her pony and listening to Imogen.

Imogen came to our home at a convenient time for us and set up her computer for us to view the images and came with stock for us to view. There was no pressure at all from Imogen which didn’t make it any easier to pick from the beautiful shots she had taken. Imogen spent a few hours with us as we just couldn’t decide and needed to see a lot of options.

I liked this approach as Imogen could bring our ideas to life.

I enjoyed watching Imogen use the space to create our vision and the way she interacted with my daughter. Lots of laughter and beautiful photos. I had a specific shot I wanted and Imogen nailed it with more beauty than I can imagine.

Our shoot created a breadth of images that blew us away. There was so much in there. The magical, the portraits and the natural pictures. We were beyond happy with the result and found it quite emotional.

We had to have all the images as each one had an emotional response from members of our family.

I feel the shoot went above and beyond... Honestly when you see them on screen they are breathtaking but when I received our frames, they are so much more than I could have imagined. I want to show everyone. They captured a moment in our lives forever."

-Kim Black

It's soooo hard for me to pick a handful of images from this one. It's genuinely one of my favourite shoots ever. I know they say working with kids and animals makes you crazy, but it's more like crazy in love with this one. It was literally such a dream to do this.

I've met Kim before whilst doing other shoots on their yard in Orston, Nottinghamshire. Her daughter, Grace, and pony, Jessie, have actually done a little bit of modelling for a HALT Equestrian photoshoot I was working on last year. I was delighted when I got the message from Kim about doing a portrait session for them both. 

We spoke for a while on the phone about how she just wanted Grace to be captured whilst she's still her innocent princess 8 year old, as she is growing up so fast.

Though I don't have kids myself, working with children over the years is always a good reminder of how quickly they grow up, and I know how important it is for mums to have those precious photos to refer back to. The change you see in even a short space of time can be astonishing. 

Grace's lovely little 12.2Hh piebald pony Jessie has been with them for just over a year. She was too forward for the riding school and so they ended up buying her. They do lots of pony club and saddle club events together. I follow them closely on instagram, it always reminds me of when I was Grace's age. Ponies being my whole life, always having fun. Oh to be 8 again!

Grace had a wonderful variety of outfits, including a gorgeous white dress which we paired with a flower crown, and flower garland for Jessie. I loved her pink tweed jacket with matching hat, too! At the end of the shoot we made time for some riding photos which felt like a lovely way to finish spending the afternoon together. 

At the viewing we created some beautiful frames for Kim to hang downstairs in their house. I know how much these will mean to them, and how fondly they will look back on these gorgeous images of their little girl.