A Day in the Life of an Arabian Horse Breeder - Photo Shoot

You've just never lived in the equine show community until you've experienced a photo shoot with one of the top Arabian horse photographers in the country. I swear that horse shows are much less stressful than photo shoots with creative types like Jerry Sparagowski, Jeff Little, and Rob Hess among others. But the grandfather of all Arabian horse photographers is probably Johnny Johnston. When it comes to eccentricities I think Johnny Johnston probably makes all the others look like light weights.

I've heard about the legendary Johnny Johnston ever since I first became involved in the Arabian horse community but haven't ever had pictures taken by the man until now. To say that Johnny lived up to his "reputation" would be a gross understatement. I was really glad that I had been forewarned and was prepared for his take charge attitude or I think it probably would have thrown me for a loop.

Rachel and I spent most of the day on Friday bathing and show clipping four horses so that we would be ready for our scheduled times on Saturday morning. It's times like this when I'm getting a number of horses ready that I remember why I only show a couple of horses at a time. Just the preparation it takes seems to go up exponentially with each new head.

By the time I left the barn and headed back home I was wiped and I still had my chores at home to do. Dragging my butt out of bed at O dark thirty was just not going to be good. It's definitely times like this I wonder what in the heck I was thinking I got myself into this mess!

5:30 came even earlier than I expected but Dave helped me feed and water horses here before I got on the road so that helped. The skies were overcast and I was thinking it probably would be a good day for pictures since that's how Jeff Little likes to shoot them. Little did I know that Johnny Johnston couldn't be farther apart in their thoughts on shooting horses.

I arrived at the barn a little earlier than I had expected so that gave me some time to double check to be sure I had all the equipment I needed before I began loading horses. Since I have a three horse slant load trailer, and we were planning on taking pictures of four horses, I was going to have to make two trips.

I figured I would take the three stallions all in the same load. They have travelled that way lots of times and they were scheduled for times slots one right after the other. Then Scandalous Hope was scheduled for later in the afternoon. I could bring the boys home and pick her up and be in great shape.

You know how it goes when you make plans like that.............the horses don't usually agree with the plans. When I began loading up the Arabian horses, I put Legs in his usual first slot. Then followed with Storm in the second only Storm decided he wanted to jump the partition and challenge his dad. It took all my strength to get the horse pulled back out of the trailer.

My heart was pumping ninety miles and hour and I think Storm's must have been going double that rate. Legs on the other hand wasn't the least bit intimidated by Storm. He acted like he hadn't even noticed the assault from his brat son.

I sure don't know what's gotten into Storm lately but it was obvious it wasn't going to work hauling the two horses side by side. So I closed the middle slot off and loaded Storm up in the back. I'd just have to take the horses two by two. Hopefully we could adjust the schedule to accommodate Storm messing with my plans.

When we pulled into Creekwood Farm they were already beginning taking portrait shots. There was a horse with an owner standing in one corner of the driveway. The tripod was set up with the camera but Johnny Johnston waving his arms at our interruption of his picture taking. Our arrival had attracted the horse's attention and instead of looking at the camera, the horse was looking at us..........Johnny wasn't happy to not have that horse's ears or expression. I should have know that this was just the beginning of how a very long day would go.......

To be continued...........

Part 2