With summer here work is getting busy. Unfortunately I've had a few problems with people going on holiday. Lucy the girl who first joined my back in 2013, finished school with no holidays booked and just a week or so later found herself travelling over much of the UK and Europe for the summer, thus she is not around when I want her. Georgie has left due to finding work in a local gastro pub/hotel prior to starting a foundation course down in Cornwall. Fortunately James has been around a fair bit and proved very useful since he is not only able to take shots but found the network easy to use.

So what have we done? Chipstead Riding Club organised 145 rounds of dressage in four arenas at Pachesham. Pachesham also had their own show-jumping event on simultaneously. Unfortunately one of my photographers went sick and thus since we were not actually booked to cover the jumping, we prioritised the dressage. The next day Juliet and I were on Thorney Island for jumping, that was a very small show finishing at 14:45. It was a nice day but since the ground was so hard the event was held indoors which was a shame. We've been down to Plumpton College 4 times covering horsey camps (and are due there again next week). Pachesham also held a one day event, these are always great to cover, the show jumping is not normally of a very high standard but is quite reasonable, but it's the cross country which produces the shots. Finally whilst James was away I covered a small show at Gasston Stables

Last Friday was at least partly a training session for John. Unfortunately people seem to think that with modern digital cameras one does not have to think, that may be true for snapshots taken by amateurs, but as a professional I think about what I am shooting and adjust my technique to match both the subject and the prevailing conditions, even then I am occasionally caught out, but fortunately that's very rare and since I can now see the image recorded on the back of the camera I can now remedy any problems before they become critical. It took much of the day but I think that it was worth the effort.

Sunday was at Warlingham & District Horse Club. This show had been rescheduled due to bad weather, unfortunately that had an adverse effect on the entries, but despite that the standard was excellent with the puissance going up to 1.65m. Is should say that the horse and rider combination looked like they could have gone even higher.