Equine photographer finds new a direction during COVID

My story of how I became a multi-award-winning photographer.

With the COVID restrictions, photographers are not able to work.  I started entering some horse portrait photographs taken last summer into international photographic competitions.

Being a member of The Societies of Photographers and The Guild of Photographers, I looked into the rules and ‘What the Judging panels’ are looking for in an image, to do well in the  Month competitions. The National Photographic Societies competition is open to Non-Member.

It’s not just a case of taking a beautifully posed photograph of a horse. The photograph has to be technically correct too.

Which photographs to select

With the COVID lockdown, I looked at the photographs that I had taken back in the summer and I selected three.

January: Entered three Horse Portrait Photographs into competitions.

• Guild of Photographers – Awarded 2x Bronze Award.
• The Societies of Photographers – Awarded 1x Highly Commended Award.

A stunning grey Andalusian horse was my first choice

This horse photographic portrait was Awarded Gold with theNPS and Awarded Silver with The Guild as a coloured photograph and Awarded Gold with The Societies as a Monochrome portrait

February:

• The Societies of Photographers – Awarded (a coveted) Gold Award and 2x Highly Commended Awards.
• Guild of Photographers – Awarded 1x Silver Award, 1x Bronze Award.
• The National Photographic Society (theNPS – This link will open the NPS FaceBook page) I only entered one image – Which received a Gold Award.

Phil Jones The Societies of Photographers’ CEO says, “This year we have seen a fantastic range of images and the standard has been very high.”

You can see more of Shiralee’s work on her website www.shiraleeswan.co.uk and Instagram @shiraleeswan

Shiralee says:

“After being made redundant from my press photography job and the end of 2019. I took the jump to start my own photography business specialising in horse portraits.

Being a horse owner and producing horses from a young age, horses are an animal I know well.

I launched my photography business specializing in horse portraits at the start of 2020, bookings were slowly coming in.

During the COVID lockdown, photography was classed as a non-essential business, therefore I was grounded.

Not being downhearted I continued to work on my website www.shiraleeswan.co.uk and built my presence on Social Media.

As we entered 2021 and were in another lockdown I thought…

Being a member of The Societies of Photographers and The Guild of Photographers, I would enter the monthly photographic competitions and enter The National Photographic Societies competition as a Non-Member.

I would like to thank Thurrock News Nub for sharing my success with their readers. You can read it too Here

If you would like to have a chat about the style of horse photography you like best, simply fill in my contact form which you will find Here