My Aunt, Cathe, lives on a horse ranch in Wisconsin. She boards horses for folks and keeps a few of her own. Recently one of her boarders moved her horse, Chant, somewhere else. Cathe thought it would be a great Christmas present to give this border a photo shoot of her big, beautiful Arabian gelding. Chant is a great horse with a very relaxed personality and lots of affection. I brought our son Finn to the shoot and he was excited to see Chant again, but he got a little scared when the horse gave him a kiss. I don’t blame him…that horse’s head is bigger than Finn’s whole body.

Chant was a great model…he cooperated and if I didn’t know better I would swear he knew English, because after giving him mock directions like “Let’s perk those ears forward” “Lift your chin” “turn your head a bit…more…right there” “Good, now straighten your neck” and so forth he would, sort of, do what I asked. I think he just liked all the attention and knew how to strut his stuff. It was my first time doing horse portraiture, but I hope to do it again because it’s just so much fun to be around those animals.