Horses and Massage Therapy

 

I recently had the fascinating pleasure of photographing my friend Registered Equine  Massage Therapist Diane Hash as she worked on a horse at a guest ranch in Alberta (more on the trip in my next post). Based in Toronto, Diane has been amassing professional experience in locations from Ontario to Kentucky since she became fully certified last year.

We were so busy riding and eating and hot-tubbing, and riding some more, that we almost ran out of time for this mini-shoot in the barn. Thankfully, the weather cooperated beautifully, after a couple of very windy days, and Diane was able to do a short therapy session on this seemingly very pleased horse, while I took advantage of the indirect sun softly streaming in and reflecting off the golden barn wood. We didn't want to startle the horse with flash, so Diane had to move her patient around repeatedly, at my request, to best take advantage of the natural light. By the end of the shoot we had accidentally achieved the glowy effect of a smoke machine (which I always love), with the sunlight dancing through the particles kicked up from the soft barn floor cover. Thankfully, Diane was pretty much done by the time the 'glow' became too much for us, and my not very well protected gear.

Diane is in the process of redesigning her website, so, soon some of our images from this shoot and others will appear on it. In the meantime, if you or someone you know may be interested in what Diane can bring to your/their horses' health care you can read more about her and what she does at www.feelingyouroats.com.