First Year Sammie Palmer talks about her series documenting the Mounted Games Association for the Personal Portfolio Module.

  2nd July 2019

Before starting the personal portfolio module, I knew that I wanted to specialise in the Equine and Canine area of photography. I also wanted to consider countryside and lifestyles that exist. After exploring different areas such as portraits of animals, animals and people and landscapes I started researching into documentary photography.

Mounted Games Association is something that I have been a part of for 10 years. Mounted Games is a branch of equestrian sport in which very fast games and are played by all ages on ponies up to a height of 15 hands. Documenting the lifestyle that exists around the sport I considered the finer detail and the behind the scenes that shows the lifestyle of the sport with the passion and the care that the rider has for their pony.

Although I have photographed the action in the ring before, photographing portraits up close with the subject and the events outside of the ring was completely new to me. By doing this I have gained confidence in talking to and photographing people and developing my visual language within my area of specialisation.