A lot of the time people ask me if I have my own horse.
When I reply with “No I don’t”, I often get a slightly confused look.
I imagine people are asking themselves how I got into such a specific field as equine photography, if I don’t even have a horse or ride somewhere.
So for everyone who is in fact wondering, here is my personal background with horses:
I grew up in a small village and started pony riding on Shetlands when I was 6 years old.
The barn was close to where I lived, so as soon as I was old enough, my friend and I would go there by ourselves and spend as much time around the animals as possible, which also included climbing around stacked bales of hay, trying to charm the kittens and other adventures.
Thanks to the woman who held the lessons, the focus was never purely on riding, but also on the general interactions and ground work.
When I got older I went on to take dressage lessons in a different stable. This time it was pretty much only about riding. We’d take the horses out of their box stalls, get them ready, take the lesson and put them back in their stalls. I’m not sure when it started, but throughout my time there, I grew more and more insecure and eventually became full on scared to go to these lessons. Horses spooked constantly and I fell off almost every lesson, sometimes actually hurting myself. There were two situations that are still burnt in my memory.
At one point we ended up watching the “professionals” train after our lesson. Even though I was still very young and had the tendency to look up to everyone older and more experienced than me, when one rider ended up taking their whip and striking their horse over their head several times, when it did something that wasn’t to their liking, it felt so incredibly wrong, that I was physically flinching back from the situation.
The other experience showed me how much of an effect these standard riding lessons can have on a horse. During my time there, they got a new pony for the riding lessons. I got to ride her when she had only been there for a few days and it might have been one of my favourite lessons, because it didn’t feel like a fight or scared me to my bones. She was just a sweet, gentle and motivated mare, trying to do her best. Some time passed and I got to ride her again. I barely recognised the horse. She felt numb, didn’t want to move, barely reacted to what the rider was doing. Even then it made me feel so sorry for all the horses, who are put in these positions, forced to perform, with inexperienced kids on their backs, who mostly don’t even mean to do harm, but who are often pretty much taught to inflict it.
I ended up quitting horseriding, mostly due to the pressure and fear I felt whenever I was supposed to attend a lesson. I would literally have stomach cramps prior to getting to the stable. In hindsight I’m not surprised my horses spooked so much and I fell off so regularly.
The downside was, quitting horseriding meant quitting horse interactions altogether.
For a while it didn’t bother me, until my family went on a holiday and I saw horses on a field not far from our accommodation. Just seeing them sparked the interest to look into further possibilities.
By now I was around 14, old enough to attempt getting something we call riding participation in Germany. It basically means that an owner is looking for help with horse care, so in exchange for money and/or barn chores, you get to work with their horse. It allows for a possible better connection with the animal and more freedom in how you spend your time together.
My first riding participation was an old shaggy gelding. Looking at the pictures now, I’m horrified how bad his shape was and that the owner let me ride him. Unfortunately back then, I was slightly blinded by my excitement for this new development. He not only rekindled my love for the actual interactions between horse and human, but was also one of the major first influences regarding my photography. I used to take my camera to the barn and take pictures with friends as often as I could and always found something new to experiment with.
Through him, I also connected more with classmates, who were crazy horse girls like me.
Eventually, I got more uncomfortable with the horses’ well being and the way the entire situation was handled. It always feels bad to step away and leave them to their fate, but in my position there wasn’t anything to be done about it, so I did leave.
And ended up finding my first soul horse. A polish draft mare.
I’m pretty sure, when I went to meet her for the first time, I was quite surprised. I guess I was also nervous, which led to her almost bucking me off during our first ride together. Well, can’t blame her.
Even though I was still trying to find my way around riding, facing certain fears, ground work and pretty much anything around horses, and also know I’ve done things, I would definitely not do anymore nowadays, she taught me so much. Some of my happiest memories with horses are thanks to her. She even caused me to open up and smile again, after experiencing a bad accident that put me in a sort of depressive state for a while. With her I had my first proper trail rides, bareback rides and neckrope experiments. I still remember how I’d cycle to the barn no matter the weather, it was always worth it. Of course we also had our struggles and I was still so young and inexperienced, but she gave me the sort of teenage horse dream one hopes for. We even used to have a social media presence, which forged several beautiful friendships with inspiring horse people across Germany, who I got to visit occasionally.
Until she was sold a few years later and moved away, leaving behind the most precious memories and a deep love for draft horses.
I struggled for a while and ended up with several different riding participations afterwards, but none of them were able to replace what I shared with her.
Over the years, I slowly stepped further away from horse riding, and got more interested in groundwork and going for hikes together. I think partially that’s due to a fear of riding (and falling) I never fully got rid of, especially when I’m not deeply familiar with a horse.
Eventually I ended up reconnecting with my riding instructor from when I was 6 years old. At this point she only had 3 ponies left and lived in the mountains with them.
We spontaneously started going for early Sunday morning hikes with them, which quickly became a ritual and created a beautiful and intriguing friendship, which I’m very grateful for.
She always had this calm and wise presence around horses and has spent her life living and working with them. I learned a lot from our adventures and conversations.
This was also the time when I started opening up to more “alternative” ways of working with horses. I started looking into Intrinzen, began reading the Tao of Equus and attended a demonstration by Bent Branderup.
Then everything changed and I went to Canada. For the first time in my life, I didn’t only see horses a few times a week, but every single day. I spent almost the entire 1.5 years in Canada looking after different herds of horses, always being surrounded by them in some way or another. Riding still didn’t grow on me, for different reasons, but I deepened my appreciation for BEING with horses. Some of my favourite moments with them were when I was just sitting or laying on a field, with them grazing or resting somewhere nearby.
I continued looking into topics like equine facilitated therapy, animal communication, hoof care etc, and actually got to get in touch with places and people who practice them as well.
I even visited Kathy, the brain behind the Intrinzen method.
Nowadays I just have this deep knowing inside, that even though I'm always striving to learn more, improve myself and do horses justice, I can’t only rely on words. That there’s also so much more to learn from practicing awareness, listening, respecting, grounding and being authentic. Learning to reconnect with ourselves, in order to be open to connecting deeper with all the beings around us.
I’m still working on unlearning all I’ve taken on throughout the years, but if there’s something I’m convinced of now, is that I want to do better. Horses are such incredible beings, that keep giving and giving, always accepting us in all that we are, even when we fail them.
I’m not sure where this journey will lead me from now on, but throughout the years it’s gotten more and more entwined with my photography and I’m so grateful I get to use my art as a tool, to express something that’s so above words. One thing that I’m sure of is that horses will continue to be part of my life in some form or another, and that is all I need to know.
