Fadedwords

I got my hair cut and colored!

I’m really diggin’ it.

Dear GFGs,

Hey, how ya’ doing?  I hope well.  I know I shouldn’t look at websites that have horses for sale, but sometimes I really cannot help myself.  And most of the time I don’t even find anything that looks good!  So that has to count for something.

However, today I was looking at a site and I found a horse that is gorgeous and would really work well for me, and looks like a good mover.  This one, unlike Remy (second horse down!), is even close enough that I could go try him out!  And my riding instructor knows his owner.  How perfect is that??  He’s also even less expensive than Remy, at $7500!  BARGAIN.

GFGs, you should go look at Granite Ghost, or Deuce HERE.  Go to the “For Sale” page.  He’s the second horse on the page, black with a gorgeous white blaze on his face.  He’s 16.2 hands tall!  That’s exactly what I need.  Don’t let the western saddle fool you, because to me it looks like he’d be a great hunter prospect.  Also, I’ve been thinking about trying my hand running barrels, and this guy would be a great way to start.

This is how I look at it GFGs: Eventually I’m going to run out of lesson money.  I can’t, in good conscience, keep accepting money from friends to pay for it.  If I had a horse of my own I wouldn’t need to pay for lessons!  I could just go ride.  So I’d need enough to buy Deuce, as well as enough to pay for his board until I could get a second job.  I’m not even asking you to send 100% good fortune my way… just enough to get me through until I can pay to feed him with money from a second job.

Reasonable, right?

Think about it.

Love,
Kate

This has been a week that has shown me how possible it is for me to actually use my photography to make enough money to horseback ride.  Or have a little extra left over to buy a dvd occasionally.  The photographs I took at the horse show were incredibly well received.  Everyone who has seen them has told me how good they are.  Several people have expressed interest in buying them; enough so that I have developed a price list to have on hand just in case.  I have been so flattered by the things people have said.

Best of all?  Someone is actually buying one!  Granted, it’s a friend.  It’s also important to consider the fact that this friend is an artist, and she told me it’s one of the best photographs she has ever seen.  I was astonished by that feedback!

I’m hoping that I’m able to turn this into something.  If I could sell just 10 4×6 prints, or 4 CDs of pictures I would get nearly enough for one riding lesson.  I would really love it if I could turn this in to something that helped me out and made it so I didn’t have to worry every month about how I was going to afford groceries.

It’s been a good week, because I’ve seen potential and hope.

Saturday I took photos for my friend Bre, who is expecting her second baby in April.  We had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs, and I got to practice this type of photography one more time:

I can’t post a link to that one, as the gallery is password protected and I only asked Bre if I could use the photos in a portfolio.  I can say that I am incredibly proud of how all of the photos turned out.

After I finished at Bre’s, I went to a barrel show that was hosted at the barn I ride at.  It was my first time photographing any sort of equestrian event, and when I got home I was so proud of the images I had captured.  I used all manual settings, and did no post processing other than cropping.

You can see all the photos from this HERE.  I was really upset yesterday because I got to the farm and realized that my memory card was still in my laptop at the house.  I had to leave, go to CVS, and get a new one.  I ended up missing Elizabeth, my instructor, riding.

Then today there was a second day of barrel showing at the farm.  Today I managed to remember everything I needed, and saw Elizabeth ride Missy!

You can see all the photos from today HERE.

I’m really proud of how the barrel show pictures turned out.  I did a lot of research about what settings I would need to use, because I knew I couldn’t just put it on an automatic mode and get crisp pictures.  I really think I did well at achieving crisp, clear images of something that is very hard to capture.  A good barrel horse can get ’round in 15-18 seconds, so you can imagine what that means for snapping a clear photo!

One day, maybe, I will be able to work events like this and get paid a little bit.  At least that’s the goal, once I’ve practiced and feel comfortable.

My parents have supported me at every turn in my life.  They helped me pay for college, which is something I am thankful for every single second of every day.  I would not have been able to go to school without their help.  When I wanted to go to a private college, a small school that was 3 hours from home simply because they had an amazing equestrian program… they helped make it happen.  I went there and always understood that my grades needed to be Bs or better, or if it was a math class I could squeak by with a C.  I understood that my parents were putting up financial resources for me to be at that school, and that quitting was not an option.  When I went to graduate school I made sure that I found a job that would pay 80% of my tuition.  My parents had already done enough.

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