I was so thrilled when Lucca’s mom reached out to me, as she’s a past client going back all the way to 2015! (You can go back and see the blog posts where I have photographed her pets over the years: including Buster, Fae, Leyland, and Nyx, then Nyx, Fae, and Quinzel, and most recently Fae, Nyx, Quinzel, and Slade.) We have fun every time we get together, so I knew this time around it wouldn’t be any different! Except maybe there is one tiny difference… Lucca is a horse! He recently joined the family and I was honored that his mom asked me to photograph him. As much as I am an expert at dogs, horses are an entirely differently animal. *pun intended* :) Photographing them is a completely different skillset that I’ve been working on, because while dogs will always be my true love, I genuinely adore working with horses. Capturing them in all of their glory involves a different pace, style, equipment… all kinds of changes to my normal routine! Plus, one look at this beautiful boy and you’ll see why I was thrilled to be asked to create some gorgeous portraits with these two.

One of the activities Lucca and his mom Patrisha enjoy doing together is competing in local and regional competitions. Patrisha said that she has a lot of fun with it, and (perhaps more importantly) so does he! They do well together too; at one point we actually got to pose them next to their trophy that they had recently won! How cool is that?!

We had a great photo session in the nearby property where Lucca normally trains and boards. It was wonderful to see their bond; there has to be a huge amount of trust and a strong relationship between a person and a horse, so it was great to see the two of them interact. I’ve only seen Patrisha with her dogs, so to see her with her horse was simply wonderful. Not to mention, horses can be more challenging to work with since they can be especially fearful, impatient, or just don’t want to do what you’re asking them to do for portraits. That was NOT the case with Lucca: he was incredibly patient and willing to do anything we asked. I was very impressed with his demeanor! For this particular photo session we did a lot of posed and stationary portraits – so hopefully we can let him loose at full speed at some point in the future, since I’d love to capture that too! Regardless, I loved the slower pace of our photo session and it seemed to fit Lucca’s chill vibe perfectly.

This is Lucca. How long did it take you to fall in love with that face?! 2 seconds? Yep, me too.

I don’t normally include people in my blog posts… but this time I can’t help it! My favorite photos of Lucca all have Patrisha in them too! These two are gorgeous together!

The champs in full regalia. (Not shown here: their epically big trophy!)

Okay, one more of just Lucca… even though I personally think his best portraits are with him & his favorite person.

Thank you Patrisha, for trusting me to photograph the largest companion in your life! I can’t wait to show you the rest of Lucca’s portraits very soon!

Tags: Canadian Warmblood horse, equine, horse, horse photo session, horse photography, San Diego equine photographer, San Diego horse, San Diego horse photography, San Diego pet photography